The brief career of former hotshot prospect Jessamen Dunker has come to an end at Florida.  The offensive guard had been suspended from the Gator squad since his arrest in January for riding a stolen motorscooter on the UF campus.

Will Muschamp announced the transfer last evening:

“I met with Jessamen Dunker, matter of fact about an hour before I came in here.  He’s decided to transfer.  He and I just felt like he needed a fresh start.  He felt like he needed a fresh start, and I didn’t disagree with him.  Didn’t really get into where.  We’re going to continue to work through that.  It’s his job to finish up strong academically here at Florida…

Guys get in a situation and obviously he’s got some pretty well-documented off-the-field issues, and we talked about it and he felt like he needed a fresh start and I support him.”

Here’s hoping the redshirt freshman can work through the legal case that’s still open against him.  Perhaps this decision was more Dunker’s than Muschamp’s, but it’s certainly fair to wonder if Dunker might still be on the Gator team if Urban Meyer were still practicing his brand of “discipline” in Gainesville.

1. Did you know?  Cam Cameron – the man thought to be LSU’s next offensive coordinator - was a groomsman at Les Miles’ wedding back in 1993.

2. Are Nick Saban and Urban Meyer on a collision course? “10 of Ohio State’s 24 signees came from SEC states. Meyer knows how and where to go after players that can win national titles.”

3. Only four returning receivers caught passes last season at Kentucky.  That leaves plenty of room for the incoming crop to make its mark early.

4. Behind the scenes with Tennessee coach Butch Jones and his statewide tour this week.

5. John Adams on the challenges Jones faces: “In a conference famous for defensive speed, Tennessee once was a frontrunner. It now has one of the slowest defenses in the SEC.”

6. Other big challenge at UT - donations to the athletic department fell by more than 25 percent in 2012.

7. Brice Ramsey joins a very crowded quarterback group at Georgia.  Starter Aaron Murray returns along with three backups who don’t have redshirts to burn.

8. The most talented group of new players at Auburn is along the defensive line.

9. When Auburn begins spring practice, a position to watch will be linebackers.

10. One of the Ole Miss signeees expected to see playing time fall?  Defensive tackle Herbert Moore, who proved to be one of the Rebels best recruiters in the Memphis area.

11. New receivers coach Pat Washington brings plenty of SEC experience to the Missouri coaching staff.

SEC Basketball

12. Tennessee has faced the five leading scores in the SEC its last five games.  Each of them met or exceeded their scoring average.

13. Should others in addition to Reginald Buckner been ejected from the Ole Miss-Missouri game? Has Missouri’s Alex Oriakhi replaced Marshall Henderson as the new instigator in the SEC?

14. What’s next for Ole Miss?

15. The good news for Missouri – they’re 6-0 in the SEC at home.  Bad news for the Tigers – four of the next five are on the road.  The one home game is against Florida.

16. Recovering from a high ankle sprain, Florida forward Casey Prather came off the bench Saturday to give the Gators 12 points and five rebounds. Florida at home against Kentucky Tuesday night.

17. First place in the SEC will be on the line when the Gators and Cats meet in Gainesville.

18. “There seems to be a perception that this Alabama team is underachieving…The truth is, this team is overachieving.”

19. John Calipari on Tony Barbee:  ”Tony is not a good coach, he’s a great coach.”

20. Georgia’s five-game winning streak in SEC play is the first time that’s happened to the Bulldogs since 2001.

21. Mark Bradley: “The Bulldogs won a game here Saturday in which they managed 12 baskets in 40 minutes. (That’s one hoop every 200 seconds.)”

Extras

22. Saturday’s craziest game – Notre Dame beats Louisville in five overtimes.

23. Paterno family responds to Freeh Report on Penn State – call it “total failure.”

Five-star safety Von Bell of Rossville, Georgia has decided to play his college football at Ohio State.  New Tennessee coach Butch Jones worked hard to flip the Chattanooga-area resident who had always been an Buckeye lean.  In the end, Jones couldn’t and that’s a hit for Tennessee.  (Ironically, ESPNU asked Derek Dooley about Bell after the young man’s announcement, but Bell’s high school coach has made it clear his star had not gotten a ton of attention from Dooley and his aides.)

Alabama also made a push to land Bell, but the Crimson Tide can afford a disappointment more easily than the Volunteers can.

Meanwhile Urban Meyer is putting together what could be the nation’s #1 class and he’s successfully coming back to the South to help do it.

Like Carl Lawson earlier, Bell handled himself well and surely won many people over with his demeanor.

You might remember Georgia’s first touchdown against Florida back in their 2007 meeting for what happened after the score:

Mark Richt told his team prior to the game that he wanted them to earn an excessive celebration penalty after their first score.  The motivational tactic drew a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties — and the ire of UF coach Urban Meyer — but it also worked.  The Bulldogs won the game 42-30.

The following year, Meyer got his revenge.  During the final minute of a 49-10 Gator waxing of the Dawgs, Meyer used his last two timeouts.  The message from Meyer to Richt: “You’ll get out of this arena when I let you out.”

Now that scab’s been picked by Georgia fullback Alexander Ogletree by way of — surprise, surprise — Twitter.

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1. $5 million slashed from the operating budget for University of Tennessee Athletics.

2. Advice for new South Carolina AD Ray Tanner - get ready for a full inbox.

3. So why exactly does Alabama play Western Kentucky?

4. At halftime tonight, Arkansas will honor the family of Garrett Uekman, a redshirt freshman tight end who died last November.

5. Urban Meyer, Ohio State, Florida and the “new” media covering journalism.

6. Sounds like last night was a hectic one in Columbia, Mo.

7. Tennessee basketball coach Cuonzo Martin likes the new NCAA rules covering texting and high school recruits. “If they don’t return a text, that means it’s been narrowed down. … Then you’re able to hone in on guys and go from there.”

Florida linebacker commit Daniel McMillian from First Coast High School in Jacksonville, Fla., has decided to take an official visit to Ohio State this fall.

McMillian has been committed to Florida since Feb. 2, but Ohio State’s coaching staff – led by former Florida head coach Urban Meyer – has convinced McMillian to visit Columbus.

“I’m going to take the visit and give them a chance,” McMillian told ESPN RecruitingNation. “You only have one chance to do this stuff.”

McMillian, who’s considered the nation’s third-best outside linebacker by ESPNU, maintained he’s still committed to Florida.

Coach Boom is taking to the podium to kick off Day Two of SEC Media Days and Year Two of his tenure at Florida.  We’ll see how Will Muschamp handles questions about pressure, his roster, and possibly even Urban Meyer’s jump to Ohio State.

* Muschamp says the first year was disappointing, but he feels the “foundation” has been put down and the team is headed in the right direction.  “We’re building a program, not a team.”

* Florida will be more of a downhill running team.  Last year the line “wasn’t as good” and the backs were smaller.

* Muschamp points out that his team was outscored 72-22 in the fourth quarter in SEC games.  That led to a change in the strength program and the coach trumpets his new strength team.

* The coach continues with his long-winded, fast-talking opening remarks and says he’s willing to play both quarterbacks — Jeff Driskell and Jacoby Brissett — if necessary this fall.

* On his new offensive coordinator Brent Pease, Muschamp said, “Well, we better score some more points.”  He then wished Charlie Weis well at Kansas.

* UF will bring back 15 of their top 16 tacklers.  This year, with more experience, he thinks the squad will be better.  “We inherited a good, young team.”

* I don’t think Muschamp has taken a breath yet.  Good Lord, slow down.  I don’t envy the Florida writers who try to cover this guy on a regular basis.  He’s talking so fast that it makes him seem nervous.

* Referring to Caleb Sturgis making the All-SEC team, the coach said he told his team that the SEC’s coaches “must not think much of you.”

* No coach gave more stats, strengths, weaknesses, high points and low lights than Muschamp.  Unfortunately he did it all in the span of about 38 seconds.  Best tip: Read a full transcript when the SEC posts one later today.  Wow.

* Looking at the clock, what seemed like 38 seconds was really about 15 minutes.  Which gives you an idea of how much info Muschamp crammed in at a breakneck pace.

* The coach believes Missouri and Texas A&M will do well in the SEC.  Offensively, Mizzou is “exotic.”  He says they’re a tough preparation for a defense.  He also is talking up the Tigers’ coaching staff.

* He says A&M’s coaches put up “video game numbers” at Houston.  He said they took 106 snaps in the first half of their spring game which shows their tempo.

* Muschamp wouldn’t comment on Dante Phillips, the DT signee who was cleared by the NCAA but not admitted by UF.  He released the player to sign elsewhere, so he said he could not comment.  (Phillips’ new Twitter name, for the record, is @knoxvillebound.  You do the math.)

* Asked what he learned in Year One, Muschamp pointed very much to the injury to John Brantley in Week Five that helped to unravel the season.

* New O-coordinator Pease has “always been on the list” of possible hires that Muschamp keeps.

* “In all league, it’s all hard.”  Asked about scheduling, Muschamp wouldn’t complain about having to play eight-straight league games.  He said he can’t control it so he doesn’t worry about it.  Good for him.

* Muschamp said he talked to Charlie Weis “yesterday” about last season.  Doesn’t sound like there’s any bad blood there.

* Asked about playing LSU every year, Muschamp said that he thinks “Florida/LSU is good for our league.”  Muschamp said he would not necessarily be in favor of a nine-game schedule because of the Florida State school.  He said every coach selfishly wants what’s best for his own school which is why the league needs a commissioner like Mike Slive who builds a consensus and who everyone follows.

* Funny moment… when Muschamp was asked about Florida’s consistency, the questioner mentioned that UF hasn’t had a losing season since 1979.  “Yeah, I heard that a few times.”

* Muschamp says A&M is an SEC-like atmosphere.

* The coach says he doesn’t have a lot of social media rules, but Florida does monitor it.  “Unfortunately we’ve got some knuckleheads here or there” who’ll put things out there that have to be taken down.  Muschamp’s buddy Jimbo Fisher banned Florida State’s players from Twitter yesterday.

* Asked about the Georgia/Florida game being played in Jacksonville, Muschamp quickly called it the “Florida/Georgia game.”  He said the game needs to stay in Jacksonville and then said, “Coach Dooley never complained about it being there.”  Zing to Mark Richt and the UGA brass.  Muschamp might have played at Georgia, but he’s clearly a Gator now.

Our overall grade for Muschamp’s “performance” based on comfort, friendliness, openness… we’ll give him a 5 on a scale of 1-5.  In terms of breaking down his team — openness — he deserves a 6.  He’s not “entertaining” like a Steve Spurrier, but he is definitely full of energy.  Makes you wonder how many Red Bulls he guzzled this morning.

The SEC’s coaches have named their preseason All-SEC squads and the schools with the most representatives shouldn’t surprise.  Alabama and LSU each had 11 players across the first-, second-, and third-teams with LSU placing a league-high seven players on the first unit.

You can read the full list here, but here’s a breakdown by school of who was represented:

Observations:

* It’s a bit surprising to see Texas A&M with six selections and Missouri with four.  As we all know, most of these ballots are filled out by school’s sports information directors with a final once-over — occasionally — provided by the coaches.  Being newcomers, I expected fewer players from those schools to be listed since no one in the SEC has really seen much of them.  Someone went digging through some preseason magazines it seems.

* If not for placekicker Caleb Sturgis, Florida would have been without a first-team selection for the second-straight year… which speaks to the lack of star talent left for Will Muschamp by Urban Meyer.

* LSU had four first-team players on defense: Sam Montgomery (DL), Barkevious Mingo (DL), Tyrann Mathieu (DB) and Eric Reid (DB).

* You’re preseason All-SEC quarterbacks — according to the coaches — are Tyler Wilson of Arkansas (first team), Aaron Murray of Georgia (second team), and AJ McCarron of Alabama (third team).

Georgia fans looking forward to a home-and-home football series with Ohio State are going to be disappointed.  According to UGA athletic director Greg McGarity, the Buckeyes nixed the 2020 and 2021 games “due to the Big Ten-Pac-12 game was added recently.”

The Big Ten and Pac-12 have reached an agreement for each league’s schools to meet on the gridiron once per year.  For Big Ten schools, that will mean nine guaranteed games against BCS foes per season.  For Pac-12 schools, that’ll be at least 10 BCS foes on the docket per year.

Adding in one area, means subtracting in another, apparently.  At least for Ohio State… which apparently isn’t as interested in playing 10 BCS foes in a season as their counterparts in the Pac-12 are.

Just another reason for Dawg fans to dislike Urban Meyer.

Will Muschamp inherited a tougher situation than most people imagined when he took over the Florida football program.  First, he would have to deal with expectations created by Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, two men who won three national/BCS crowns between them.  Second, he would have to restock a roster that had been built to fit Meyer’s spread offensive system.  Third, he would need to instill some off-field discipline back into the Gator program… something that was sorely lacking under Meyer.

Add all that up and it’s no wonder Muschamp’s first year turned out about the same way Meyer’s final year in Gainesville had — average.  But that doesn’t mean the second-year coach isn’t pleased with the progress his program is making:

“We are where we are.  We’re 15-11 the last two years.  I think we’re on the upswing.  I think we’ve recruited well.  I think our upcoming junior class has some really good players in it.  I think our senior class has got some mature guys that are ready to have a good year.

I think our upcoming junior class for the most part played for the first time last season… I’m excited about where things are headed at this point.”

Muschamp told The Gainesville Sun that he’s “excited about where we’re headed” in part because his team should actually be able to run the ball a little bit this season.  In the SEC, that’s a rather key component of a pro-style offense.  ”The cohesiveness offensively and being more physical and running the ball, we are better than we were at any point last year because of experience, because of knowledge, because we’ve kept some continuity with some things terminology-wise.”

Left unsaid:  The fact that the Gators’ top two running backs in 2012 will no longer be 5-9, 175 pounds (Chris Rainey) and 5-7, 191 pounds (Jeff Demps).  Those guys could fly — especially in Meyer’s spread-option attack — but to be featured in Muschamp’s power, pro-style attack?  Fuggedaboutit.  (NSFW)