Receiver prospect Cordell Broadus has a snared himself a new scholarship offer to go along with previous offers from California, Duke, Oregon State, Southern Cal, UCLA, Washington and Tennessee.  LSU is the latest school to put an offer on the table.

So why is this story on our homepage and not just on the recruiting page?

Because you might have heard of Broadus’ father — Snoop Lion.  Though you might know him better by his pre-Rastafarian name — Snoop Dogg.  And Snoop Dogg’s ties to LSU and its coach might help the Tigers’ chances in the race for Broadus.

The rap star is a massive sports fan and has backed a number of colleges over the years with Southern Cal’s and LSU’s jerseys being among his favorites to wear in public.  At one time he also had a house in Baton Rouge.  And in 2008, he popped up with Les Miles at a Rotary Club meeting, prompting Miles to say: “I defend his music and am much more a fan of the person.”

Snoop Dogg, er Lion said he showed up at the event (pictured below) “to give my love and support to Coach Miles.”

At the moment, Broadus seems to be more wowed by Southern Cal’s offer, having grown up a Trojan fan.

Still, Miles’ friendship (?) with the junior-to-be’s father can’t hurt LSU’s chances.

After Tyrann Mathieu’s alleged admission that he failed double-digit drug tests for weed while in Baton Rouge, we’ll let you insert your own joke about the Tigers now chasing the son of a tried and true Rastafarian.

In the words of Broadus’ father: bow wow wow yippee yo yippie yay.

You can call it the first major recruiting pitch of new coach Butch Jones’ career at Tennessee.  Yesterday he spent the day wooing ex-Vol quarterback Tee Martin back to Knoxville.

But while many folks always believe any alum would kills for a chance to return to his old school as a coach, the reality is a little different.  For fans, of course a player would return.  For players-turned-coaches, there are little things like money, family happiness, and upward mobility that weight into the decision.

Perhaps that’s why Martin — who led UT to the 1998 BCS championship as quarterback — spent the day in Knoxville yesterday and then scrambled back to Los Angeles and his job as Southern Cal’s receivers coach this morning without giving Jones or his old school an answer.  Martin was on the Kentucky staff that snapped a long losing streak to Tennessee.  He then went to work with Lane Kiffin, one of the most hated sports figures in the history of the Volunteer State.  In case you haven’t been keeping up, sentimentality doesn’t appear to rank too high on Martin’s list of reasons to accept/decline a job.

“Things went really good,” Martin told The Knoxville News Sentinel.  “I had an opportunity to meet the staff and see everything that’s changed (on campus).  I could tell they were headed in the right direction…

“We’ll see what happens.  Today was more about getting to know each other… It’s about making this decision for the right reason.”

The ex-QB also told VolQuest.com (paywall) — the Rivals site covering Tennessee — that he was going back to California to “talk with Lane and then make my decision.”

So is Martin heading back to Southern Cal’s campus to tell Kiffin bye-bye in a face-to-face meeting?  Is he trying to convince his singer wife Toya to move from LA to Knoxville?  Or is he just using Tennessee’s offer to get a raise in California?

Whatever Martin’s motivations, this should show fans of all schools that there’s more to accepting a job than just spending four college years on a school’s campus.  For an assistant it’s a career move, a business decision.  Even for an alum.  Even if his blood runs (insert school color here).

UPDATE – Multiple reports from Knoxville are claiming Martin has rebuffed Tennessee’s offer. Martin: “I made a commitment to my players at USC.”

When Texas A&M upset Alabama a weekend ago, the SEC needed some breaks if it was going to capture another national championship banner.

First, the league needed for Alabama to stay within the top four and not drop deeper down into the BCS standings well.  That happened as Bama fell only to #4.  Second, the SEC needed at least two of the three teams ahead of Alabama to lose over the course of the regular season’s final two weeks.  And darned if two of those three didn’t lose on Saturday night!

The current BCS standings now shape up as follows:

1.  Notre Dame — The Irish play at Southern Cal on Saturday, but the Trojans will be without starting quarterback Matt Barkley.

2.  Alabama – The Tide finish the season at home against 3-8 Auburn and will then face…

3.  Georgia – In the SEC Championship game.  The Dawgs close out the season with a visit from Georgia Tech this weekend.

4.  Florida -- The Gators face #10 Florida State in Tallahassee on Saturday.  Whether starting quarterback Jeff Driskel will be back from an ankle injury remains a mystery this morning.

5.  Oregon – The Ducks might be this year’s Alabama as there’s a chance they could lose their own Pac-12 North Division and still get voted into the national title game through a series of upsets and outside help.

6.  Kansas State – The Wildcats are probably done, barring a long series of miracles.

LSU is ranked #7, Texas A&M #9, and South Carolina #12 in the latest standings.

As for the BCS Championship Game picture, it appears as though Notre Dame is in with a win over disappointing Southern Cal in LA.  Then, barring a massive upset by either Auburn or Georgia Tech, the SEC Championship Game winner — either Alabama or Georgia — will most likely face the Irish in Miami with a chance to collect a seventh straight BCS crown for the SEC.

Read the rest of this entry »

The new AP Poll is out and Alabama jumped to the top of the rankings.  The Tide’s 41-14 win over #8 Michigan — that’d now be #19 Michigan — was enough to push Bama past Southern Cal and old SEC pal Lane Kiffin.

The SEC landed five teams in the Top 10 overall and six in the Top 25.  But wait, there’s more.  An additional five league teams were among those receiving votes.  That means 11 of the SEC’s 14 teams received at least one vote in this week’s AP poll.  (Our condolences to Kentucky, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt fans.)

At any rate, here’s how the SEC fared in the AP voting after Week One:

1.  Alabama

3.  LSU

7.  Georgia

8.  Arkansas

9.  South Carolina (tied with West Virginia)

24.  Florida

Also receiving votes were Tennessee (which came in at #27), Missouri (#36), Texas A&M (#37), Mississippi State (#40), and Auburn (tied with MSU for what would be #40).

UPDATE — Nick Saban’s team has also claimed the #1 slot in this week’s USA Today Coaches Poll.

Yesterday we used the case of Jeff Driskel’s sore/broken/bruised/destroyed/nicked shoulder to remind everyone — fans and media alike — that the current means of new dissemination has gone full-on wonky.  Turns out, all those reports that leaned toward a serious injury for the Florida quarterback were way off-base.  At least according to Florida officials.  And Driskel’s mom.  All of which just goes to prove that the ready-fire-aim, Twitterification of news is a bad, bad thing.

Ditto coaches’ ridiculous attempts to cut off any information they can from the media and, by default, their own teams’ fans.

In Driskel’s case, Twitter exploded yesterday with news of an injury to his non-throwing shoulder.  Reports varied from a small injury to a broken scapula.  Here’s a sampling:

The Palm Beach Post quoted a release from UF stating that “Jeff Driskel was a practice today and will be taking reps at practice on Wednesday.”  No biggie.

The Gainesville Sun reported: “Although a source close to the Florida football program told The Sun that quarterback Jeff Driskel has sustained a ‘significant’ shoulder injury, UF released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying Driskel will practice with the team Wednesday.”  The paper’s source claimed Driskel injured his shoulder Sunday, did not realize it until Monday, and the “unspecified injury” was discovered after that.

The Orlando Sentinel wrote that Driskel “was injured during practice Sunday, but he is expected to return to workouts this week.”

InsideTheGators.com — the Rivals site covering Florida — reported behind a paywall that the injury was “minor” and that Driskel “seems fine,” according to a source.

Meanwhile, USA Today went straight to the horse’s (mother’s) mouth.  According to Mary Driskel, her son “told her he injured his left, non-throwing shoulder in drills on Sunday and woke up sore on Monday.  She said Driskel did not practice Monday or Tuesday.  He is expected to return on Wednesday.”

All that after the rampant speculation on Twitter had hyped the boo-boo into a major injury.

There are three reasons stories like this get blown out of proportion:

1.  Paranoid coaches close off as much info as possible… and fans actually applaud them for it.  Most NFL teams don’t close practice.  Pete Carroll didn’t close practice at Southern Cal.  Writers are simply expected to keep certain things quiet and when they don’t, they get booted.  But the media is allowed to see who’s at practice and how healthy those persons happen to be.  That hasn’t hurt NFL squads and it sure didn’t hurt Carroll at USC.  Coaches who don’t like stories like Driskel’s being blown out or proportion have themselves to blame.

2.  Fans — the same ones who cheer their coaches for fighting off the big, bad media — will scour the earth for every nugget, tidbit, or rumor that they can find regarding their favorite teams.  Credibility doesn’t matter nearly as much as speed.  “Gimme, gimme, gimme… but don’t give it to the media,” seems to be the mantra.  Better to get bad info fast from a messageboard or Twitter than get good info a hair slower from trained professionals.

3.  Media members know the score on all that.  Twenty years ago, the goal was to research a piece and get more details than the other guys in town.  Now, if you want credit, you tweet what you know when you know it.  Whether you actually know it or not.  That’s a bad system and a recipe for trouble and even good journalists fall victim to it.  Gotta get eyeballs.

We’re all to blame, people.  You, me and that coach who’s shutting his doors to journalists and the fans to whom they report.

It’s a ridiculous situation.  And it’s only going to get worse and worse.

It took a freedom of information request for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to finally obtain a full tally on the number of scholarship players Georgia will have available for football this fall.  That number?  72… 13 below the 85-scholarship limit.

Chip Towers of The AJC points out that Southern Cal — starting its scholarship reductions this season — will have three more scholarship athletes than the Bulldogs.  That should put things into perspective.

Still, recruiting coordinator Rodney Garner says he’s happy with the thin red line that remains in Athens:

“I do like the quality of the young men that we have in the program.  Some of the guys that we’ve lost — and we’ve lost a lot of guys — you wish you could have been able to save a few of those.  It definitely would have helped our situation.  But a lot of those guys we made the decision to cut and move on.  It wasn’t a university decision or whatever.  It was just, what do we want this program to be known as, what do we want it to be?  It’s a double-edged sword.”

Sounds good, “What do we want this program to be known as,” and all.  And we all know that UGA has rather strict policies when it comes to arrested players.  But Georgia’s high horse isn’t quite so high after word came Saturday that cornerback Branden Smith — arrested in March for misdemeanor marijuana possession — will not start the season on suspension as expected.

“After just gathering all the information, determining what happened, we’ve got peace that we’re doing the right thing,” Mark Richt said.  Indeed, the head coach has likely got more details on what happened with Smith than any outside party.  Also, Smith entered a pretrial diversion program in May, which apparently allowed the starting DB to avoid suspension.

A misdemeanor marijuana possession charge probably wouldn’t have ended with a suspension at many schools, but Georgia has touted its tougher standards for quite a while now.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t point to a strict rulebook one minute only to look for loopholes if your secondary depth starts to look bleak heading into an SEC opener at Missouri.

Sorry, America.  If the USA Today’s Coaches’ Preseason Poll is correct, the two teams most likely to square off in this year’s BCS Championship Game are LSU and Alabama.  Same as last year.

The poll had LSU eek by Alabama by a total of 1,403 points to 1,399 points.  Southern Cal was third with 1,388 points.

The rankings for the SEC’s schools:

1.  LSU

2.  Alabama

6.  Georgia

9.  South Carolina

10.  Arkansas

23.  Florida

25.  Auburn

Seven of the top 25 teams and five of the top 10 all from one conference?  Toss in the fact that Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Missouri and Tennessee — in that order — also received a few votes and it’s no wonder so many conference commissioners and university presidents want conference championships to play a big role in the soon-to-come college football playoff.  In the current set-up, it’s an SEC world.

1. The Opening in Beaverton, Ore., provided a nice challenge for many SEC prospects.

2. CBSSports has a nice package of notes from The Opening.

3. Brian McLaughlin from Sporting News has this rundown from The Opening.

4. Alabama QB commit Cooper Bateman made nice with Southern Cal’s future signal-caller.

5. Alabama TE commit O.J. Howard was one of the top offensive performers in Oregon.

6. Brentwood (Tenn.) Academy cornerback Jalen Ramsey was a defensive standout.

7. Kentucky is one of the schools standing out to basketball prospect Andrew Wiggins.

8. Memphis, Tenn., athlete Mack Weaver has strong interest in Arkansas.

Here’s what Alabama fans have to look forward to when O.J. Howard arrives in Tuscaloosa.

Bill Byrne oversaw a decade of great success at Texas A&M before stepping down from his post as athletic director yesterday.  Aggie teams collected 46 Big 12 championships and 17 national title banners during his stay in College Station.  It’s hard to find fault with that kind of success.

If only some of that success and some of those titles had come in football.

Former Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill has decided to pass on being politically correct and has instead spoken his mind regarding Byrne’s watch:

“No question Bill did a great job with the upgrading of facilities with the non-revenue sports, and when you look at the overall athletics department, certainly you see great improvement in those areas.  Unfortunately, when you look at every university, it is remembered by what it did in football.  When you talk about Alabama, you’re not talking about golf.  When talking about Southern Cal, [you're] not talking about tennis…

Unfortunately, we have not been successful in one area, basically the one most universities are judged on.  There were a lot of successes [for A&M], more than any other school in the Big 12, but when you talk Big 12 you mention Oklahoma or Texas first because of football.”

The parents of A&M’s equestrian team might not want to hear that, but it’s the truth.  If A&M had been winning championships in football, Byrne — whether he backed a move to the SEC or not — would probably still be in place today.  Presidents and trustees aren’t as quick to force guys out when they’re overseeing winning, money-making football programs.

Byrne wasn’t.  And now he’s out.

Jeff Long must have one of those big, spinning prize wheels behind his desk.  Arkansas’ AD is now into Week Two of his coaching search and no one’s really sure what he’s planning to do:


* Leave interim coach Taver Johnson in place for the fall?

* Promote another interim coach from the current staff?

* Go outside and find a caretaker interim like ex-Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer?

* Chase a man with ties to the Hogs like new UAB coach Garrick McGee?

* Or just go all out and make the biggest possible splash he can make right this instant?


If he’s looking to make the biggest splash, he certainly did a cannonball yesterday.  KFSM-TV in Fayetteville reported yesterday that Long had reached out to one-time Hog grad assistant Pete Carroll regarding the Razorbacks’ job. 

Yes, the same Carroll who reportedly makes $7 million per year with the Seattle Seahawks.  The same Carroll who ditched Southern Cal after captaining that ship right into an NCAA iceberg that’s going to leave the Trojans a full 30 scholarships down over the next few years.

Sure, sounds like just the type of guy to clean up Bobby Petrino’s mess.

Carroll actually replied to the story on Twitter, pushing ex-NFL coach Steve Mariucci for the job:


“I still love the Arkansas fight song… But Mooch is the man… Go Razorbacks!”


Mariucci, er Mooch, came up earlier this week in connection with the Hogs’ gig.  He said he’d had no contact with the school but that he might be interested in getting back into coaching someday.  He coached one season at California before jumping to the 49ers and then the Lions of the NFL.  So there’s another guy who has no problems getting when the getting’s good.

One guy who put down roots for more than a quarter-century in the same place — Fulmer as an assistant and head coach at Tennessee — spent yesterday denying comments made by one of his ex-assistants earlier this week.

Doug Matthews told Nashville radio station WGFX-FM that Fulmer had been contacted by the Razorbacks, presumably regarding an interim position.

Fulmer’s response to that yesterday? 


“I have not been contacted by Arkansas.  But I think Arkansas is a great place.

When I left Tennessee, I was asked if I would coach again, and I said I would consider it if it was at a place where I could compete for a championship.  Arkansas does qualify as that kind of place, as there is a very solid foundation there.”


So Fulmer hasn’t been contacted as Matthews suggested, but he would be interested.  And it sounds like he’d be interested in the full-time, long-term gig, too.

Trouble is, this is kind of the status quo for Fulmer in his post-Tennessee career.  A friend of the coach floats his name in connection with a job (like Kansas, like Arkansas), then the coach denies contact.  Methinks Fulmer — like most coaches — likes to hear his name tied to openings.  See: Tubby Smith, Jon Gruden, Houston Nutt, etc, etc.

As we mentioned yesterday, another of Fulmer’s ex-aides is currently on the UA staff — defensive ends coach Steve Caldwell.  If he knows anything of a Razorback-Fulmer connection, he’s decided to just be vague:


“I think he’s a great guy.  He’s just a good individual and a quality coach.  You don’t win 152 games in this conference and not be a good coach.”


According to The Sporting News, Long will make an announcement about his plans “early next week, perhaps as soon as Monday.”  But Long gave no timetable on Wednesday.  He did, however, post the following on Twitter yesterday:


“Hog Fans, please remain calm and please do not believe rumors.  But do come out to the the spring game and support our young men!!”


The double thes were his typo, not ours (for once).

Meanwhile, former Arkansas player and current running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Tim Horton continues to try and recruit amidst all these rumors.  In our view, Horton makes the most sense for UA in the short term.

Rather than making a quick decision on a splashy hire who might just make matters worse — again, Mariucci left Cal after a year and Carroll left Southern Cal in the NCAA crosshairs — Long should follow his own advice and “remain calm.”

Promote Horton to interim coach for 2012. 

Tab a grad assistant or bring in another interim coach to handle Horton’s running backs duties. 

Hand the recruiting coordinator job to someone else already on staff.

And spend the next eight months finding the best, safest bet to keep the momentum created by Petrino surging forward.

Or of course he could just spin that prize wheel and hope to get lucky.