If Lane Kiffin has any regrets regarding his time at Tennessee or the many toes he stepped on by leaving after a single season… he isn’t showing it.  Speaking to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Kiffin laughed off the amount of blame and bile fired in his general direction by still-angry Volunteer fans:

“Are you sure I didn’t get blamed for the Kentucky game? I’m sure somebody somewhere blamed me for that.

After we left two years ago, and I don’t remember the timeline, there were some floods in Tennessee. So people around here were joking that was my fault — that there were floods there.

It is what it is. I still have a number of people I stay in contact with there at Tennessee. I know this: I did everything the right way there, as you can see what came out of the NCAA’s investigation. The goal was to make Tennessee better every day. That’s what we strived to do every day we were there … to build confidence in our players and our fan base, and recruit really good players.”

Kiffin has shown at Southern Cal that he can coach football.  But his decision to return to LA after a year in Knoxville decimated the Tennessee roster leading to back-to-back years of roster attrition (following the ouster of Phillip Fulmer the year before).  He may be able to laugh things off at this point, but his departure from UT set the Vol program back at least a year or two in its attempt to rebuild.

Tennessee — a staple of the national Top 10 throughout the 1990s — has not won a conference championship since 1998.  And whether he likes it or not, Kiffin can rightfully be blamed for helping to keep the Vols in the bottom half of the SEC the past two seasons.

1. Basketball prospect Nerlens Noel weighs in on his recent visit to Kentucky.

2. The coach of Auburn signee Avery Young says he wasn’t a “packaged deal” with Young to Georgia.

3. Braden Gall of Athlon Sports takes a look at LSU’s class of 2012.

4. Here are some Arkansas recruiting notes.

5. Mark Richt and Paul Johnson weigh in on the term “commitment” and what it really means.

6. Bryan Fischer of CBSSports.com discusses Texas A&M’s 2013 recruiting in his recent mailbag.

7. Lane Kiffin and Southern Cal are making a run at a few Georgia prospects.

8. Brian McLaughlin of Sporting News looks at the recent junior day success for Florida and Texas A&M.

Prospect video: See why Noel is considered one of the nation’s top basketball prospects.

1.  New offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler is trying to figure out what Auburn’s scheme/system will be in 2012.

2.  After playing with smallish linebackers last season, new D-coordinator Brian VanGorder wants the Tigers to find bigger ‘backers moving forward.

3.  Arkansas’ Mike Anderson wants to find some answers to his team’s road woes.

4.  The Hogs have handed out their bowl bonuses, but some departed coaches got ‘em while others did not.

5.  Add LSU’s Trent Johnson to the list of people who missed out on current NBA sensation Jeremy Lin.

6.  Here’s more on how some Ole Miss fans showed their displeasure with their hoops team last night… and earned a technical in the process.

7.  MSU’s Andrew Moultrie (shoulder injury) is probable for tomorrow’s game with Auburn, but Renardo Sidney (back spasms) is questionable.

8.  Arrested on a domestic battery charge, Florida tight end AC Leonard has been suspended by Will Muschamp.

9.  How’s this for an early breakdown: This writer points out that Georgia’s top cornerback will be suspended when the Dawgs face Missouri and #1 receiver signee Dorial Green-Beckham.  (Avoid the rush, worry early.)

10.  So now there are some in the Peach State who believe Mark Richt is being too tough on crime?

11.  This columnist says football assistant Tee Martin’s defection to Southern Cal hurts Kentucky on two fronts.

12.  South Carolina officials are meeting with the NCAA today… hoping that their self-imposed sanctions will fend off further punishment.

13.  Here’s a breakdown of how NCAA hearings work.  (Example: If a coach is thrown into the water and he floats, he’s a witch.)

14.  Tennessee AD Dave Hart says he’s happy to get exposure from the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game.

15.  Oddly enough, UT’s last Friday game was a 13-0 win over NC State back in 1939.

16.  Vanderbilt obliterated Ole Miss with a red-hot shooting touch last night.

Lane Kiffin did a number on Tee Martin’s alma mater, Tennessee.  Now he’s doing a number on Kentucky by nabbing Martin from Joker Phillips’ coaching staff.

Martin — considered an up-and-coming coach and recruiter — has texted a number of media outlets to let them know he would be departing Lexington for Los Angeles.  He will replace Ted Gilmore on Kiffin’s staff at Southern Cal.

A UK spokesperson said Phillips and AD Mitch Barnhart “tried very hard” to keep Martin.  But to no avail.

Former Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton will go down in Volunteer history as a villain to many Big Orange fans.  He fired Phillip Fulmer and replaced him with Lane Kiffin.  He fired Bruce Pearl.

That’s dumb and dumber in many folks’ minds.  And some of those people let Hamilton know about it in a ridiculous manner — with threats.

Speaking to The Chattanooga Times Free Press, Hamilton said he “received several threats and it reached a point that I moved my family out of Knoxville for several days last spring and I was even assigned police protection.”

Surprising?  Not in the least.  Kiffin’s family claimed they received death threats on the way out of Knoxville as well.  Just this past week, San Francisco 49er Kyle Williams received death threats via Twitter after fumbling away his team’s shot at a Super Bowl.

In the age of the internet, everyone is anonymous.  That cloaked status encourages decent people to behave like children and imbalanced people to behave like criminals.  If booze makes folks feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof, the anonymity of the internet allows some to view themselves as the biggest, baddest asses in the world.

Well, at least the ass part is true.

Hamilton — who’s now working as the president of a Nashville-based charity — says he has no regrets about the way he did his job, including the hires of Kiffin and Pearl.  “Lane was the right person for the job at that time.  I hate how things worked out in the end, but there was no way of seeing that when we made that hire.”

“I know every move I made while I was at UT was made with the best interest of the university in mind.  I have confidence in the decision to hire Lane, and Bruce had an unbelievable run.  Again, I hate how things ended with those two examples.  I’m like anyone else and there are times when you reflect on decisions and what you might have done differently.  In any area of your life, all you can do is your best every day, and some days I felt better about my decisions than others.”

In this writer’s view, Hamilton deserves heat from Tennessee fans because ultimately the buck stopped at his desk.  But in terms of his individual decisions, he wasn’t the clown he’s often been made out to be.

He fired Phillip Fulmer, but Fulmer had had two losing seasons in his last four and hadn’t won an SEC title in a decade at the time of his dismissal.

Had Hamilton hired a good replacement, no one would be claiming today that Tennessee should have held on to its legendary ex-coach.  Interestingly, Hamilton did — it seems — hire a darn good coach.  Kiffin and crew have done an excellent job at Southern Cal so far (though they’re about to feel the brunt of recruiting restrictions and NCAA penalties).

Hamilton’s mistake with Kiffin was not weighing the possibility that Pete Carroll might leave Southern Cal and the Trojans might come after the ex-Carroll aide.  (In truth, though, who at the time would have foreseen all that?)  But that’s exactly what happened and Kiffin left Tennessee high and dry.  And that burned the Vol football house to the ground.  Two years of attrition and a coaching change right before signing day aren’t appealing to prospective coaches.

Will Muschamp turned down millions to replace Kiffin.  Only the likes of Derek Dooley would take such a job.  So while Hamilton is pilloried for “finding” Dooley, in reality, his candidate pool was going to be awfully shallow simply due to circumstances.

As for Pearl, the ex-coach took Tennessee basketball to unseen heights, but he blew his career apart with a lie to NCAA investigators and a phone call to a prospect’s father in an attempt to keep the person quiet about a barbecue.  The idea that Hamilton is to blame for Pearl’s downfall is laughable.  Ditto the notion that UT could’ve kept Pearl and his staff.  Hard to do that when the coach lands a three-year show cause penalty and recruiting ban.

Hamilton oversaw a comedy of errors, yes, but fate and the actions of other people played a large role in his demise.  Had Kiffin not abandoned him after a year and had Pearl not found it necessary to cover up what would have been a secondary violation, Hamilton might still be Tennessee’s athletic director overseeing a pair of healthy programs.

Of course, just for suggesting that, I’ll probably get a couple of death threats.

Florida received a visit last weekend from defensive lineman Leonard Williams from Mainland High School in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Williams, who’s considered the nation’s eighth-best defensive tackle by ESPN.com, attended Florida’s 33-23 win over Tennessee. The Vols are also recruiting Williams.

Leonard was able to watch his former teammate, UT freshman running back Marlin Lane.

“Leonard had a great time at Florida,” Mainland assistant coach Keynodo Hudson said. “He just went for the game but he loved being in the stadium and hearing the crowd. He also enjoyed seeing Marlin score a touchdown for Tennessee. That’s one of his best friends.”

Williams has plenty to consider before he makes his decision at the Under Armour All-American Game in Orlando.

Hudson said Williams plans to schedule his official visits for the fall. Auburn and Southern Cal will “definitely” receive official visits, Hudson told ESPN.

Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones — who just transferred to Athens from Southern Cal — might have a harder time gaining eligibility than initially thought.

Last month, a police investigation into what amounts to a slush fund in the office of Columbus, Georgia’s former parks and recreation department director showed that Jones and UGA basketball signee Kentavious Caldwell-Pope likely received improper benefits while playing AAU basketball in high school.

It was believed that Jones had received Atlanta-to-Los Angeles (and back) airline tickets.  However, a report in The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer today states that:


“Further investigation into police records shows (the P&R director/AAU coach) also withdrew $700 in cash from the account and made notes on the transactions that may link them to Jones.“


Georgia AD Greg McGarity said earlier this week that his school is finalizing its report on the Jones/Caldwell-Pope matter and hopes the NCAA will rule quickly on Jones’ status with the Bulldog football team.

Question is — Did UGA know about this new information or are they now having to restart from ground zero on their report?

If true, it’s possible that the NCAA could sit Jones for a few games and require him to donate to charity an amount of money equal to what he received during his AAU days.  Of course, it’s also possible they could bag him entirely.

What doesn’t appear likely at this point is Jones taking the field with his Georgia teammates when they face Boise State in little more than a month.

UPDATE — Our bad, folks.  We missed a rather big point in this story.  It seems Jones was given the money while attending Southern Cal, not during his AAU days.  (Only the plane tickets were provided during his AAU days).  In February of 2010, Tony Adams withdrew $400 from the questionable account and labeled the transaction: “Jarvis laptop.”  Then in March of last year, he withdrew another $300 and labeled that transaction: “Georgia Blazers Jarvis Jones.”  The Georgia Blazers are the AAU team Adams coached and Jones played for.

When news emerged last week that Renardo Sidney would bypass Mississippi State’s August basketball tour of Europe, the syllables “uh” and “oh” probably popped into most Bulldog fans’ minds.

Sidney has been nothing but trouble since his arrival in Starkville.  He sat for more than a year due to NCAA issues.  He got into a fight with teammate.  The teammate left, Sidney stayed.  He tweeted his support for a teammate’s tweet which was critical of the MSU coaching staff.  The teammate was suspended, Sidney was not.  And now he’s backing out of a European trip to — according to him — try to lose more weight via workouts with ex-NBA player John Lucas in Houston.

So is it true that this just about weight loss?  Would it not be better for team chemistry if Sidney were — you know — an actual part of the team?  Is Rick Stansbury once again allowing Sidney to live by his own set of rules?

When it comes to questions about the talented big man, Brandon Marcello of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger says, “We never know what to believe.”

The coach still says Sidney will be back and will be a member of his team this season.  But Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com warned of trouble on the horizon in a weekend blog:


“The whole Sidney-to-Mississippi State story has been a circus from the start and there’s no reason to think it won’t end that way, too.  Put another way, it won’t end well.  That’s my prediction.  It just won’t end well and Stansbury will end up ever enrolling the troubled prospect — that is if he doesn’t regret it already.”


If he regrets it already, Stansbury should stop allowing Sidney to act as though he’s the captain of his own ship.  MSU’s coach has burned up a lot of goodwill over the past couple of seasons and Sidney has been at the center of much of that. 

How ironic that Stansbury might have gone overboard to land someone other schools were running away from — Southern Cal and UCLA were both moonwalking away from Sidney — and in return it could — if all goes wrong — cost him his job.

If Sidney is more trouble than he’s worth again this season and Stansbury’s “special” treatment of him creates a rift on the team, a squad with great potential could go south.  If that happens, Stansbury could find himself in serious trouble at season’s end.

If you’re just covering one team at SEC Media Days, you don’t have to worry about getting tired of hearing a question asked over and over.  You hear it once and then another topic pops up.

But when you do what we do — cover all 12 schools at Media Days — then you’re guaranteed of growing tired of hearing one or two writers ask each of the league’s coaches the exact same question.

This week, you can bet that someone will want to write about the idea of paying players.  That writer will no doubt ask the same question in the same way to all 12 SEC coaches.

As a result, you’ll read right here what all 12 coaches have to say on the matter.  And that topic, by the way, is back in the news today.

Josh Kendall of The State in Columbia, South Carolina tackles it here.  ESPN.com’s Chris Low does the same here.

Low points out that SEC commissioner Mike Slive has said he supports the idea of “paying for an athlete’s full cost of attendance, which over and above tuition, room and board, books and university fees would also pay for reasonable personal expenses as well as travel expenses when an athlete returns home to see family.”

That is not the same as paying players some type of mini-salary.  But as Kendall points out, a university’s full cost of attendance is: “a figure determined by its office of financial aid (that) includes not just tuition, fees, books, room and board but also the personal expenses a student incurs.”

See the problem?  The cost of attending one school is different than the cost of attending another.  Would it not be a recruiting advantage for UCLA or Southern Cal — for example — to be able to offer a greater sum of cash than say Auburn or Clemson?  Some 18-year-olds might start comparing dollar signs (and they’re unlikely to do many cost-of-living calculations).

Unless the NCAA simply tells all schools that they can pay — and we’re spitballing here — $2,500 per athlete over the value of the institution’s scholarships, we don’t see how a “pay increase” proposal can come to pass.

If cost of living becomes a factor, trust that some schools will bend the rules in their favor.  If each league is allowed to create its own level of pay, count on the haves (SEC, Big Ten, etc) further separating themselves from the have-nots (WAC, Sun Belt, MAC, etc).

At SEC Media Days there will be quite a bit of talk about this subject.  But for now, that’s all it is — just a lot of talk.

An interesting little story kicked up over the weekend and its exposed a big bit of inconsistency from the NCAA.  First, the backstory:


1.  Last season, John Calipari won his 500th game as a coach.  Kentucky honored him for the accomplishment.

2.  But Calipari has had to vacate two seasons worth of wins from UMass and Memphis due to NCAA sanctions and — according to the NCAA’s actual records — Coach Cal has only 467 wins, not 500+.

3.  Over the weekend, Jerry Tipton of The Lexington Herald-Leader broke the news that the NCAA’s committee on infractions had sent a letter to UK president Lee Todd asking the school “to publicly acknowledge that it was wrong to recognize” Calipari’s 500th win.

4.  UK is expected to let the NCAA approve the wording of its apology.  If the school does not admit the mistake and make changes to its media guides, etc, UK officials will have to go before the committee on infractions (and face who knows what).

5.  Kentucky officials said in April that “regardless of how the 42 victories are statistically noted, they did in fact occur.”  True enough, but such a stance practically taunts the NCAA’s committee on infractions.

6.  Apparently a fan of a rival school turned UK into the NCAA for recognizing Calipari’s previously kiboshed wins, which is weak in our view.


Eric Crawford of The Louisville Courier-Journal — not a man prone to believing that the NCAA is out to get Kentucky — hints in his latest column that that might actually be the case.

We like Crawford and we think this issue is getting way too much attention, but — and it’s a big but — Kentucky is at fault here.

Whether you like the oft-applied “vacation of past wins” penalty administered by the NCAA, it is an official NCAA penalty.  Like it, don’t like it, it counts.  (And let’s face it, if the NCAA went to something with more teeth than vacated wins, fans and writers would really scream about tougher sanctions.)

By ignoring the NCAA’s rulings regarding Calpari’s records, UK can be viewed as thumbing its nose at the NCAA.  Silly?  Not if you’re the NCAA’s committee on infractions.

The NCAA rulebook deals with a whole world full of slippery slope issues. 

“Why can’t a booster buy a kid a hot dog?”  Because the same booster might buy the kid a T-bone steak once a week if the rule is discarded.

“Why can’t a player sell his championship ring for a couple hundred bones?”  Because a school could set up a booster club to purchase rings and other collectibles from every member a team for thousands of bucks a pop.

On the big end, the NCAA’s rules make sense.  On the small end, they often seem silly.  But if the NCAA doesn’t cover the small stuff, then a loophole is created for the big stuff.

That same line of logic applies to the current Calipari case.  If Kentucky is allowed to say its coach has 500 wins — when he doesn’t — then what’s to stop Southern Cal from claiming the 2004 national title and all the trophies that went along with it?  What’s to stop Michigan from re-hanging Final Four banners from 1992 and 1993 that have been rightly taken down due to vacated records?

Now, in this area, we’ll concede a point to Crawford.  He states that UMass still flies a banner from its vacated Final Four year in ’96 — the one that Calipari can’t take credit for — and that Marcus Camby was credited at a recent ceremony for contributing to wins — the same ones Calipari can’t take credit for — that don’t exist in the NCAA history books.

The NCAA is correct to ask Kentucky officials to acknowledge past sanctions and penalties doled out by governing body of collegiate sports.  That said, it must make sure that all schools are abiding by those same rules.  Michigan and Southern Cal are.  Kentucky isn’t and it has been asked to make corrections.  Whether UMass has been asked to make corrections or not is anyone’s guess.  But it should be.

We’ll agree — to an extent — with Crawford on this point too:


“The NCAA does have a point here.  UK honoring Calipari showed a disregard for serious actions the NCAA took in the past against teams he coached.  I’m not saying the NCAA is wrong.  I’m saying it’s silly.  And inconsistent.  It should’ve left this one alone.”


Because of the “slippery slope” argument we made earlier, we disagree that the NCAA should have or could have left this one alone.  But we do think they are inconsistent.

When it comes to COI hearings, it’s hard to be consistent.  No two hearings are the same.  Just as no two criminal trials are the same.  But when it comes to schools acknowledging NCAA sanctions?  Well, that is an area where the NCAA can and must be consistent.

Michigan and Southern Cal and Kentucky and UMass need to all be living by the same rules.  In other words, it’s time for someone to send a letter to UMass about their Final Four banner.