Nick Stephens starts a tragic chain of events

After failing to win the starting job at Tennessee, would-be fifth year senior quarterback Nick Stephens announced a few weeks ago that we was transferring. Today, it was confirmed that he will continue his career at Division II Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas.  Stephens is a Texas native who grew up in Flower Mound.

But this won’t be a one and done type of situation.  A review of his transcripts has given Stephens an extra season of eligibility at his new school.   I’ll leave it up to you as to what kind of statement that makes about the quality of education at Tennessee.

This officially crushes the dreams of junior-to-be Casey Page, sophomore-to-be Jake Fenske, redshirt freshman Aaron Doyle, redshirt freshman Jackson Crawley and sophomore-to-be Blair Johnson.  Those are the five Tarleton State quarterbacks who were vying for the starting job vacated by Scott Grantham.

The job came open under unusual circumstances, because Grantham actually had a year of eligibility left.  Following a season in which he threw for just under 3,000 yards and 19 touchdowns, he attained his bachelor’s degree and decided to hang up his cleats and jump into the coaching profession.

So while he pursues his master’s in business administration he’ll moonlight as the Texans’ quarterback coach.  In Stephens he’ll have a new star pupil to work with this fall.

It’s unclear what kind of domino effect Stephens’s decision will have, but it probably won’t be a good one.  Will Doyle or Crawley now transfer down to a Division III school like East Texas Baptist and ruin some other guy’s dream?

That guy might just be ETBU sophomore quarterback Seth Hubbard, a native of Beckville, TX.  After seeing a new hotshot quarterback show up, he’ll just quit college altogether and get a job back home as a security guard with Pinkerton.

But that will push 67-year old Joe Michaels out of job.  He’s done fine work watching over the Airgas warehouse at night, but the middle managers at Pinkerton have been itching to push his old ass out the door.  Once Hubbard applied, they got their wish.

Now Joe’s on the street and the only thing he can find is a part time gig washing dishes down at the IHOP. Which means that Julio Flores is now the beneficiary of a pink slip. He had been cleaning the dishes just fine, but his English wasn’t so hot, so hasta la vista, Julio.

So he heads back to Tijuana but the only work he can find is as a trigger man for a local drug cartel.  His first assignment is to take out the family of a drug mule who didn’t deliver the goods.  He goes over to the house, AK-47 in hand, and shoots the place up.

Nice work, Nick Stephens.  You’ll soon have the blood of five dead Mexicans on your hands.

If you’re not that familiar with Nick’s new school, here’s some footage from one of last year’s most memorable games:

Les Miles is a terrible guidance counselor

With Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell being anointed as the new Ryan Leaf in the wake of his team trading for Jason Campbell, it was inevitable that the spotlight would shine on his old school, LSU.  And it hasn’t revealed anything pretty.

If you count 2005 as the first recruiting class that could be totally credited to current head coach Les Miles, here’s how the program has finished in the Rivals rankings each year:

2005: #22
2006: #7
2007: #4
2008: #11
2009: #2
2010: #6

The anomaly of the 2005 class can be traced to the fact that the school was undergoing a coaching change.  Here’s how Rivals regarded the last three classes of Miles’s predecessor at LSU, Nick Saban:

2002: #15
2003: #1
2004: #2

You can argue that the talent brought in by Miles is roughly similar in quality to that brought in by Saban.  But the results are dramatically different in regard to how the NFL views players coached by each of these guys.

After Saban’s fifth season at LSU he had produced 10 draftees, including two No. 1 picks and six players in the third round or higher.  In this year’s draft, two of his players at Alabama (Rolando McClain and Kareem Jackson) were first round selections and two more (Javier Arenas and Terrance Cody) were taken in the second round.

The players coached by Miles who were eligible for this year’s draft had a decidedly different experience than Saban’s Alabama players.  A total of 12 LSU players were invited to this year’s NFL Combine, more than any other school in the nation.

That indicates that pro teams are more than aware that there are talented players to be had in Baton Rouge.  But when it came time to actually select them, only six Tigers - Trindon Holliday, Chad Jones, Brandon LaFell, Perry Riley, Charles Scoot and Al Woods - were picked in the draft that just ended.  None of them went in the first or second round.

Jones came out a year early and probably wished he hadn’t.  He was considered the No. 1 or No. 2 safety in America (depending on which recruiting service was doing the ranking) coming out of high school in 2007.  At this year’s draft, six safeties were taken ahead of him.

Of the players signed by Miles since 2005, just eight have been drafted (the six listed above and seventh rounders Ricky-Jean Francois and Demetrius Byrd last season). He has produced no draftee higher than the third round and six of the eight have not been picked until the fourth round or later.

Those numbers aren’t exactly Sabanesque, and for good reason.  Saban has shown a proficiency to get his players ready to play on the next level.  Miles, on the other hand, isn’t coaching up many guys that NFL scouts are salivating over.  And that includes studs like Jones, who could have signed with any school in the nation.

What’s more worrisome for LSU fans is not the lack of NFL ready players Miles is producing, but the number of games he’s starting to lose.  Since that 2-loss national title team in 2007 (the core of which was recruited and initially coached by Saban), he’s 17-9 and an even 8-8 in SEC play.  Last season generated this extremely curious coaching decision by Miles:

In regard to Russell (who was a Saban recruit), can the blame for his failed NFL development be laid at the feet of Miles?  Looking back, the kid thrived in his last season with the Tigers in 2006, throwing for 3,000+ yards and 28 touchdowns against only 8 picks.

As a program, LSU is definitely slipping, and for that Miles deserves the blame.  With no significant in-state rival in a talent rich state, the program has no business EVER being in decline.

But let’s not go overboard and pin everything on the guy.  After all, Russell’s lack of motivation while playing for what is now a terrible NFL franchise were probably the biggest factors in his becoming the new Ryan Leaf.

So the Hat gets a pass on this one.  But what he won’t get a pass for is another 9-5 season, because patience is wearing thin with that fan base.

Spring football stuff (Part 2)

* Great losses in K-State football history: 62-14 to Nebraska in 1984, 59-11 to Colorado in 1989, 79-0 to the Purple team in the 2010 spring game.   That’s right, the hapless White team was wiped off the face of the earth by their Purple clad teammates in the K-State spring game.  Carson Coffman passed for 440 yards and seven touchdowns in reminding the White team’s defenders just how much less talented they are than the team’s starters.  I haven’t seen a group of men turn on their own like that since the jarheads  in “Full Metal Jacket”:

* Three catches for 43 yards in a spring game aren’t exactly eye popping stats, but when it’s Ohio State tight end Jake Stoneburner putting up those numbers, it’s pretty interesting.  The buzz in Columbus is that the tight end will be utilized more in the passing game to give Terrelle Pryor some extra options.  Stoneburner and fellow tight end Jake Ballard combined for 15 catches all of last season, so if the spring game is any indication, that position will be a lot busier this year.

* Tyler Hansen is still listed as Colorado’s starting quarterback.  Does this mean that Cody Hawkins will spend the vast majority of his senior season on the sideline hanging out with his dad?  If Colorado’s spring game was any indication, Cody might still have a shot at getting his old job back.  He was 20-26 for 220 yards and two TDs in the game while Hansen was 17-22 for 170 yards and three scores.  Neither threw a pick in the 37-27 win for the Black squad (which Hawkins quarterbacked).

* For a college football junky like me, it’s not a bad thing that so many spring games are now televised.  Among those, Cincinnati’s was probably the most entertaining.  Coach Butch Jones allowed a few fans to call plays during the game, one of which was a 60-yard bomb from receiver D.J. Woods to Vidal Hazelton off of a fake reverse.  Zach Collaros was razor sharp at quarterback, completing his first 11 passes in less than optimal weather conditions.  In case you forgot, he completed 75% of his passes last season when filling in for Tony Pike.

* Rutgers was probably hoping to use spring practice as a means of getting a new offensive line time to coalesce.  But on a unit looking to replace three starters, there were three probable starters (center Howard Barbieri, tackle Desmond Wynn and guard Antwan Lowery) who were unavailable for the spring game due to injury.  Quarterback Tom Savage is the real deal, but he’s gotta be a little nervous about playing behind a line that probably won’t be totally settled until a couple of games into the season.  Here’s what he’s capable of behind an experienced group:

The country’s thick with Tebow hate

The drafting of Tim Tebow by the Broncos has apparently done the unthinkable, it’s managed to unite fans of the Chiefs and Raiders:

That was one of hundreds of comments left on the Denver Post story concerning the hometown team drafting the former Heisman winner.  And there was no inbetween with this thing, Broncos fans either really loved the pick or viewed it as the beginning of the end for head coach Josh McDaniels.

The press can’t get enough either, check out this diatribe from Pete Prisco over on CBSSports.com:

Denver Broncos coach Josh McDaniels should enjoy the next year or two in Denver. Really. Soak all of it in. Enjoy being a head coach. Enjoy making all the decisions.

Your days are numbered.

When you trade away Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler, the key components in the Broncos passing game in a year span, and then draft Tim Tebow in the first round of the draft, you are sending a loud message.

Talent doesn’t matter.

Character does.

Why not pick the altar boys from the parish down the street? Aren’t they good kids? Or maybe you can pick all the “A” students in this draft?

It doesn’t matter if they can play. Just make sure they are good “yes men.”

It just doesn’t make any sense.

I understand a coach wanting to have good character guys, but this is going past that.

Tebow is a fifth-round talent.

First round?

Nobody in their right mind would ever say that Tebow plays the position better than Cutler. But Cutler was shipped out for being a bad boy.

Now they have Saint Timmy to fix things.

Here’s a bet: He doesn’t even beat out Brady Quinn.

He makes Quinn and Kyle Orton, the other quarterback, look like John Elway.

Tebow is raw. He doesn’t understand the passing game. He doesn’t read defenses.

Oh, but he’s a good kid.

At least he’ll save the locker room.

OUCH.  There have been few athletes in recent memory who are as polarizing a figure as Tim Tebow.  And that’s a very strange phenomenon to me.

An athlete tends to spark this level of debate when or she does something wrong.  Pete Rose got dinged for betting on his own team.  For Tiger Woods, it was a scandal in his personal life.  With Mark McGwire it was the steroid thing.  You get the picture.

But Tebow’s really done nothing wrong other than be himself.  He’s apparently a good Christian dude who’s pretty squeaky clean.  And you can put him right up there with guys like O.J., Bo and Herschel in terms of college football players who reached iconic status before they ever left campus.

So what is it about this guy that makes people so desperate to point out his perceived flaws?  Why do so many people want him to be a complete failure in the NFL?

The points that Prisco make above probably hold some water.  I thought Carson Palmer was the best quarterback I’ve seen coming out of college in the last 10 years.  In that Orange Bowl win over Iowa that capped off this career at USC, I thought to myself that Palmer could make any throw asked of him on the next level.

Do I get the same feeling about Tebow?  To be honest, I don’t, and a lot of other people share that assessment.  The difference is, many of those detractors seem hellbent to shout it from the rooftops.

“Tebow’s release isn’t quick enough!”  “He won’t be able to run as well on the next level!”  “He won’t even be as good as Alex Smith!”

So it’s his perceived deficiencies as a football player that rouse such passion in his detractors?  If so, that’s pretty damn sad.  I mean really, who the hell cares if a quarterback is drafted in the first round and flames out?

The landscape of past drafts is strewn with the bodies of first round dud quarterbacks like Cade McNown and Akili Smith.  The only people who need to get passionate about it are the team owner who watched his GM make the pick and the season ticket holders who endured the result.  The rest of us shouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

So really, let’s get down to brass tacks, it’s not Tebow’s skill set (or lack thereof) that has people up in arms.  It’s that squeaky clean image that gets under their skin.

I’ll just put it out there that I’m as guilty as the next guy of criticizing those who I feel are “religi-wackos.”  I freely throw about the term “God squaders,” not as a compliment, but as an insult.

I once had a girlfriend who loved Michael W. Smith’s music.  I never realized how much I hated bad pop music with a Christian theme until I had to get into her car.  For me, that noise coming out of her speakers was damn near cringe inducing.

I’m not alone in my world view, not by a longshot.  And when dudes like me see a guy like Tim Tebow, who looks like he might as well have sprung forth fully formed from Pat Robertson’s right ear, we recoil in horror.  He’s the virtuous all-american boy who represents all that is good in this world…and he pisses us types the hell off.

Don’t ask me to analyze this any further, it’s just the way I am.  But I’m beginning to rethink my stance on this whole thing.  Really, what’s the downside of Tebow succeeding?  What are people so afraid of?

If Tebow were to pan out, the NFL wouldn’t force CBS and Fox to use gospel music as they go to commercials, early afternoon games on Sundays won’t be done away with as a favor to church congregations and  Bill Belichek won’t be required to put a  screenprint of the Shroud of Turin on his sideline sweatshirt.

So big friggin’ deal if the all-american boy succeeds.  Your life won’t change a bit.

The Pouncey Twins love each other…a whole bunch

There are few things outside of kidney stealing prostitutes that strike more fear into the heart of your average heterosexual man than the thought of kissing another man on the lips.  Nothing exemplifies this more than the exchange Jerry and Newman had during “The Pool Guy” episode of “Seinfeld.”  Ramon has just been pulled from the poll at the health club and he’s unconscious.  This is the discussion that follows:

JERRY:  I think he’s gonna need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
NEWMAN:  Mouth-to-mouth?
JERRY:  Yeah.
NEWMAN:  Huh.
JERRY:  Well? Go ahead.
NEWMAN:  You go.
JERRY:  You knocked him out.
NEWMAN: Yeah, but you pulled him in.
JERRY:  Come on Newman.  Do it.
NEWMAN:  Nah.
JERRY:  He might die.
NEWMAN:  Yeah.  Maybe.

Florida’s Pouncey Twins have no such qualms about mouth putting their lips on each other, though.  After all, they did share the same womb for nine months, so they were close from the start.  And Maurkice can’t possibly be a homophobe, not after years of having the hands of America’s most heterosexual quarterback between his legs.

So is it any surprise that Maurkice planted one on Mike after being drafted by the Steelers?  Not to me:

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