In today’s world — with hundreds of HD games on television each week, ticket prices rising, and Americans becoming more and more accustomed to getting what they want when they want it — college football programs have to win.  Now.  A lot.  The problem, of course, is that not everybody can win.  Now.  A lot.

Those that don’t win regularly see their attendance numbers fall.  Revenue drops as a result.  Just ask Tennessee governor Bill Haslam about the flagship football program in the Volunteer State:

“They can’t be average, and you hate to say it that way, but financially it just doesn’t work.  They have to fill that stadium up.  They get the benefit of being part of the SEC and all the TV money that comes with that, but at the end of the day, if they can’t fill that stadium up and sell concessions, then not just the football program but all the other sports that benefit from a strong football program suffer…

“If you want to be bottom line about it, it shows why UT-Knoxville has to be good in football.  You have a whole program that’s set up with a 100,000-seat Neyland Stadium, and it’s a program that supports all the other sports other than basketball and provides scholarships back to the university.”

The irony is that the biggest and most powerful benefactor of the University of Tennessee and its athletic department over the past few decades has been Governor Haslam’s own family.

It didn’t take South Carolina long to find a replacement for outgoing defensive line coach Brad Lawing.  In fact, it took less than 24 hours.  North Carolina D-line coach Deke Adams is set to jump from one Carolina to the other… and to jump at a chance to work with All-Everything Gamecock defensive end Jadeveon Clowney.

Adams moved to UNC for the 2012 season along with Larry Fedora from Southern Miss.  The former Golden Eagle player had been on the staff in Hattiesburg for the three seasons prior.  Before that, he’d coached below the FBS ranks.

Adams said the courtship with USC was — obviously — a quick one:

“Everything just kind of happened real fast, to be honest with you.  I got a call (from defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward), and then from that point on, it took off.  The next thing you know, it was over.  It just went really fast.  (Ward) and I, we’ve known each other for a little while, too…

Coach Fedora has been great.  He’s been great to me and my family.  I’ve enjoyed my time with him.  It was a great opportunity for me and my family (at South Carolina).  I get a chance to coach one of the best defensive players in the country.  I’m excited about that…

I haven’t really studied him or anything like that.  I’ve watched him when I had a chance to see him on TV.  He’s probably the most dominant defensive lineman in the country right now.  My goal is to definitely get in there and coach him up, but at the same time not mess him up.  I’m excited to have a chance to coach him.”

Carolina fans have to like Adams’ admission that he doesn’t want to mess up his new protege.  It’s one thing to coach Clowney and add to his abilities, but changing too much of what’s worked for him is a danger.  Adams appears to realize that from the get-go.

As for Adams’ new boss, we weren’t particularly impressed with Ward’s comments regarding the departure of Adams’ predecessor.  Lawing will coach defensive ends at Florida under newly promoted defensive coordinator DJ Durkin.  He’s also been named assistant head coach.  But rather than simply saying, “We wish Lawing luck moving forward,” (as most bosses in his business would do), Ward uttered these words:

“Brad’s reason to leave here was way beyond football, and that’s between him and his family.”

Well, no, not anymore it’s not.  Ward should be flagged for unnecessary verbiage.

By making the above statement he opened the door for fans and media to speculate as to why Lawing and his family wanted to move.  Ward was also quoted as saying: “It became (about) a little more than football.  He felt like he and his family needed a new start.  That’s what they’re going to do.  I think at this point in his career, money is always an issue, especially when you’re getting close to an age when you’re trying to make as much as you can (before retirement).  But I think it had to do with a lot more than money.”

So at least twice Ward hinted that something is up behind the scenes with Lawing’s and his family.

Sorry, but that’s out of bounds.  In a profession where coaches move time and again, there was absolutely no need for South Carolina’s defensive coordinator to give any explanation at all for an underling’s departure.  “He was looking for a new opportunity,” would have sufficed if pressed.  Heck, Ward himself has bounced around from Chattanooga to Virginia Tech to the NFL to Arkansas and to Carolina.  Here’s guessing his ex-bosses didn’t get into his rationale for leaving.

Ward should have piped down, been the bigger man, and hired the next guy.  At least he got the last part right.

(NOTE — Some of you will read the headline to this story and skip straight to the comment boxes without stopping to read what’s actually written here.  This isn’t a knock on fans or on other media members.  It’s a knock on the current system of information delivery that we’ve all become accustomed to.  And we couldn’t possibly make it any clearer that we include ourselves as part of the problem right along with everyone else.  Please read what’s actually written, as this is an issue much bigger than sports.)

Welcome to the future of news coverage, folks.  Everyone’s now a reporter.  And most reporters — even the real ones — no longer live by the standards they once prescribed to.

With four coaching searches going on in the SEC this offseason, it’s been laughably difficult to follow much of anything that’s really going on out there.  God bless Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart for just grabbing a coordinator and moving forward… making everyone’s life at least 1/4 easier.

We have a theory here at MrSEC.com regarding the amount of bad information that’s been out there these past couple of weeks.  It’s one theory with five parts.  And here it and they are:

1.  Coaching searches can best be described as fluid. 

One minute a candidate might have an offer on the table from School Y, but by the time that info is leaking to the press and getting posted to the web or airing on ESPN, School X might have put forth a bigger offer.  Or the coach might have changed his mind.  Or School Y might have heard back from another candidate it liked better than the fallback option offered earlier.  What’s actually correct right now might not be correct in five minutes.

2.  We are addicted to information in short bursts.

As a society, we no longer want accurate reporting if it means we’ll have to wait a few hours to read up on a subject.  Information is simply a new form of entertainment, a constant feed of blurbs, posts, and tweets that kill time until some AD steps to a podium and actually introduces a coach.  Truth?  Just gimme something to read, Dude.

3.  Never before has it been easier for schools, coaches and agents to float bad info.

Negotiations now take place out in the open.  Fan reaction is used as leverage by ADs, coaches and their agents.  Websites that actually help coaches find new jobs have started providing “news” feeds, as if that’s not a massive conflict of interest.  Bad information — or at the very least “spin” — is rampant.

4.  “News” can now be delivered by wannabes, liars and trolls.

Everyone is now the media.  Got internet access?  Then you are the media if you choose to post on a messageboard or on Twitter or in some comment box.  In some ways that’s a good thing.  In many other ways that’s a very bad thing.  Wannabes — people who want to seem more in the know than they actually are — can share gossip and rumors that may or may not have a single grain of truth attached to them.  Liars are those folks who enjoy sharing misinformation simply to see the reaction of others.  Oh, they’re out there.  We’ve had pranksters admit to us that they’ve posted bad info on messageboards for kicks.  We’ve also seen that fans from one school can drop into the messageboard area of a website catering to a rival fanbase.  These trolls lob grenades of bad data towards their enemies and then chortle at the fallout.

5.  The traditional media will now race to be first rather than work to be correct.

Those of us with a background in the traditional media — TV, radio, newspaper, internet websites — have dropped the ball.  As consumers’ standards have fallen, our reporting standards have dropped as well.  Most try to get good information and report with accuracy, but speed is now more important than ever.  The old adage states that a news person would rather be right than first.  No more.  Now the goal is to be right and first… and in racing to be first, getting the story right sometimes takes a backseat.  Instead of finding three sources for a story, now someone might only need two before running with a story.  Instead of needing two sources, another media member might feel good to go with the info provided by one.  Hoping like hell, of course, that that one source is both informed and honest.

Add it all up and we’ve entered a new age when it’s difficult to know who in the media to trust.  That’s because we’re all media now, after all.  And would you trust every Tom, Dick or Harry you met on the street?

This issue isn’t limited to college football coaching searches, of course.  This problem exists in our coverage of actual news and politics, too.

And it should scare the hell out of all of us.  Consumers need to demand more, but they’re addicted to the daily info-stream.  We in the media should be just as diligent as ever, but instead we’ve always got one eye on the clock.

Sadly, it looks to us like things will only get worse in the future, not better.  To heck with being first or right about that one.  On that one, we hope we’re wrong.

The Big Ten’s move to nab Maryland and Rutgers earlier this month set off shockwaves — again — across the world of college athletics.  The Big East ran out and grabbed Tulane and East Carolina yesterday.  One would replace Rutgers, the other would replace whichever school would be plucked from the Big East to join the ACC and take Maryland’s place.

The latest aftershock came today when the ACC officially announced that Louisville would be joining its ranks.  That’s a great move for Louisville as it leaves a financially weak conference for a tad richer one.  But what domino will fall next?

The ACC could expand further by grabbing UConn and Cincinnati (who fought hard to gain entry into the ACC this week).  Such a move would stretch the league to 16 full-time members plus Notre Dame in all sports but football.  But would adding those markets and households drive up television viewership for ACC football?  Most likely not.  Therefore, we believe it’s doubtful the ACC will grab those schools now.  (Boston College has fought in the past to keep UConn out of the ACC, for what that’s worth).

Might the Big 12 try to expand toward the East and grab Cincinnati or siphon off one or more unhappy ACC schools?  Possibly.  But the ACC filed suit this week against Maryland in an attempt to collect its full $50 million exit fee from the Terrapins.  To date, no school has had to actually pay a full exit fee and if the Terps can escape without having to pay $50 million, schools like Florida State, Clemson or others might look at the potential to make more TV money in the Big 12 and actually ditch the ACC.  It was rumored this summer that FSU and Clemson (and then Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech) all were “done deals” to join the Big 12, but obviously, those deals weren’t done.  In fact, they weren’t even deals.  But they could be someday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good Wednesday to you.  Updates, rumors and our views on the SEC’s coaching searches still underway are coming your way ASAP.  After talking to one source last night and another this morning, we’ll also be eating a little crow (which, oh, so many of you will enjoy).  Plus, the latest on Jon Gruden… who he’s talked to and where he might land.  All that plus the usual headlines and news stories from around the league.

Before we get to all that though, we start with the first song off the iPod today.  For those who’ve never seen or heard of Daryl Hall’s web-turned-TV show “Live from Daryl’s House,” we invite you to Google the highly-acclaimed series now.  It’s a perfect example of an older artist using the web to connect with a younger fanbase.

Some of you who’ll remember “I Can’t Go For That” won’t know who the heck Cee Lo Green is.  And some of you who know who Cee Lo Green is won’t know the song “I Can’t Go For That” or the blond guy in shades singing it.  But this funked up version of a 30-year-old song works as well as or — dare I say? — better than the original.  That’s saying something for this #1 hit from January of ’82.

“Easy, ready, willing, overtime.  When does it stop?  Where do you dare me to draw the line?”

News is on the way…

If you’re the quarterback for a major college football team in an age when anonymous dimwits can send you nasty comments in a nanosecond all from under a veil of anonymity, you better be ready to take a whole lotta crap.  Tennessee QB Tyler Bray wasn’t… and he responded to said crap via Twitter on Saturday following the Vols 41-31 loss at Mississippi State:

“It’s hard because you put your heart out there and then go on your Twitter and see the hate mail.  You want to react, but you can’t.  I was just frustrated at the time.  It’s been two weeks in a row that we could have won, and it’s frustrating.”

For those keeping score at home, Bray tweeted that he hoped “bandwagon fans” of the Vols wouldn’t egg his home as some classless Georgia fans had done to Aaron Murray’s abode following the Bulldogs’ loss to South Carolina a week earlier.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Nick Saban caused an uproar among coaches who run up-tempo, no-huddle schemes.  Alabama’s coach — fresh off a game with Hugh Freeze’s fast-paced Ole Miss offense — suggested that defensive players are put at such a disadvantage by those no-huddle systems that it could be dangerous and lead to more injuries.

Naturally, coaches using that offensive style responded negatively to Saban’s claim.  And many non-Bama fans said Saban was just whining because his team had won by only 19 points (which doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to this writer).

I thought it sounded, however, like a defense-first coach who hates to see defense go the way of the dodo bird in college football.  That’s not crying.  That’s just a guy taking up for his own style of football in the same way that the speed-it-up coaches have said in the week since that there’s nothing wrong with their system.

Well, Saban’s finally found a backer in CBS color analyst Gary Danielson.

Read the rest of this entry »

SEC West

1. Pat Dye:“Saban is the best coach in the country — I’ll grant him that. But he ain’t a better man than Gene Chizik.”

2. Breaking down game film of Auburn’s performance Saturday night: “Interestingly, it wasn’t the final time Loeffler repeated a play in a critical moment.”

3. To those wondering about LSU’s performance at Auburn, remember this? “After Alabama 12, Tennessee 10, after Cody blocked his second field goal of the game on the final play to save the day, how did the 2009 season turn out for the Crimson Tide?”

4. Over the years, the LSU defense has been best known for its linemen and defensive backs.  What about those linebackers?

5. Teammate Robert Lester on Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley: “Last year he was kind of timid and not really after it, but he’s a guy who has really taken charge of the defense.”

6. Alabama’s Barrett Jones on Nick Saban’s quest for perfection: “It’s not about the score. It’s about doing it the right way.”

7. “Can this energized Ole Miss offense score more against Alabama than any other team this season?”

8. The coaching search at Arkansas: “Every day is a peak season day in Fayetteville right now.” Even former President Bill Clinton is weighing in on the Razorbacks problems.

9. Christine Michael rushed for 230 yards last year against Arkansas,  but he’s now at a crossroads in his career.

10. Arkansas has defeated A&M three straight seasons. Receiver Uzoma Nwachkwu: “It adds a little fuel to the fire.”

11. Dan Mullen on why his Mississippi State team has struggled at times the past few weeks: “It is hard sometimes, you try to fight against the kids looking up at the scoreboard…”

SEC East

12. Mark Richt won’t confirm but their Georgia teammates are – suspended starters Bacarri Rambo and Alec Ogletree will finally get to play this weekend against Tennessee. “Having those two guys back is going to be huge.”

13. About that Georgia defense – is it “exotic”? Two Tennessee players seem to disagree. Georgia’s offense is “vanilla” no more.

14. Florida scored 37 points against Tennessee – 38 against Kentucky.  Small change in points, big change in third-down productivity.

15. Coming off suspension, what will South Carolina safety DJ Swearinger do differently? “I won’t stop playing how I’m playing. I’ll just target lower.”

16. Steve Spurrier on the Kentucky coaching staff:  ”Randy Sanders, their offensive coordinator, is an excellent offensive coach. Rick Minter, who was here at South Carolina,  he is an excellent coach.”

17. Randy Sanders on ailing Kentucky quarterback Maxwell Smith after practice Tuesday.  He felt “pretty good.”

18. Mizzou defensive coordinator Dave Steckel on the Central Florida coach: “George O’Leary is a really good old ball coach … his offenses remind me of the Bill Snyder offenses, very meticulous, very detail-oriented, multiple formations…”

19.  Mizzou defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson is the SEC’s leading tackler among defensive linemen.

SEC/College News

20. Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo banned from off-campus recruiting for 30 days - took a recruit and his mother to the NCAA Tennis Championships.

21. LSU and TCU make it official - will open 2013 season at Cowboys Stadium.

22. Defense is what separates the SEC from the rest.  Here’s a look at some of this year’s top defenders from around the league.

23. What schools have been elite in both football and basketball?

24. That new BCS model?  Kind of look likes the current version.

25. Helmets coming off and the scrum at the bottom of a pile: “We might not get them all.”

26. What do players do all day when they have a night game? “Sit inside and watch games that are on TV.” 

SEC Basketball

27. Florida releases start time and TV information for its non-conference schedule.

Tennessee QB Tyler Bray says he didn’t watch film of second half from Vols’ loss to Florida
South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier says QB Connor Shaw will start against Missouri
Georgia LB Jarvis Jones says he will play against Vanderbilt on Saturday after missing last week’s game
The Sports Business Journal reports that ESPN and the SEC are close to finalizing a new TV deal…
The pact will include the launch of an SEC Network in August of 2014
Texas A&M RB Christine Michael and S Steven Campbell will be back from suspension this week
Arkansas QB Tyler Wilson was back at practice yesterday after missing last week’s game with a concussion
Keep up with all your SEC news at MrSEC.com and twitter.com/mrsec

Longtime readers of this website know that this particular writer wants more colleges to play one another while wearing their actual school colors.  Meaning: Dump the white unis whenever possible.

A product of the black-and-white TV era, most schools continue to play by outdated rules… home football team wears the dark jersey, road football team wears the white jersey.  That’s reversed come basketball season, for some reason.

Well, the NCAA recently changed the rule allowing schools to wear their home unis against one another if they both agreed to do so.  Southern Cal and UCLA were the first to push the notion and they should be saluted for it.

Now the Chick-fil-A Kickoff officials are getting with the program, too.  According to the official website for this weekend’s games, Tennessee will wear its orange jerseys and NC State its red jerseys when the two teams meet tomorrow night in Atlanta.  On Saturday, Auburn will wear its blue jerseys and Clemson it’s orange jerseys.

Amen, hallelujah!  This is how college football looked for its first 50-60 years of existence.

Via statement, the president of the Chick-fil-A games, Gary Stokan, says this will be a new tradition for the Georgia Dome events:

“This new tradition is going to create an even more electric atmosphere at a venue already known for being one of the loudest and craziest in college football.  It’s going to give both games a really unique look, and we know the fans will get behind this, to help create a great visual effect both in person and on TV.”

The website tips a hat to HD television for helping to make this switch possible:

“The general rule of one team wearing a dark-colored jersey and the other wearing mostly white is in part due to the early days of black and white television when you needed the added contrast to tell one team from the other on the screen. Today’s high-definition televisions with ultra-crisp pictures essentially take that away as long as there is enough difference in the colors of the jerseys. The dark and light uniform combinations have been adopted by nearly every sport and have been the norm for generations.

But on Friday and Saturday, the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game will break that rule.”

Oh, you can disagree with the politics of the game’s title sponsor.  Heck, you might not like the pickle on Chick-fil-A’s sandwiches, either.  But only a true fuddy-duddy would disapprove of teams returning to the days of school color versus school color.

Nice move, Mr. Stokan.  Hopefully your groups is starting a trend.

That’s not to say schools shouldn’t be allowed to make a choice when it comes to wearing white or not.  (We at MrSEC.com are very pro-choice on uniforms.)  Some schools have come to like their “road” looks.  And now that schools enjoy selling 40 different jerseys to their fans for the extra revenue — call it the Oregon Factor — there’s a financial reason to keep the whites around, too.  But for those schools that want to wear their dark unis every week, we’d sure support ‘em.

In fact, if the SEC needs another way to grab just a few more ratings each week, maybe Mike Slive can convince his league’s presidents to become the first conference in the country to encourage darks versus darks whenever possible.