The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 10/5

In this edition of the LKSOC…Vince Dooley takes bad parenting to a new level, Boise State gets leapfrogged and I start to feel old:

◊ Vince Dooley, be a good father and admit you want Tennessee to kick Georgia’s ass

I found the following quotes from former Georgia coach/AD Vince Dooley regarding this week’s Tennessee-Georgia game to be very interesting:

“It’s family first, but I’m certainly not going to be pulling for my son in Sanford Stadium,” he said.

The coach acknowledged it will be strange hoping Tennessee defeats his beloved Bulldogs, although his affections have their limits.

“You don’t all of a sudden love that ugly orange,” he said. “I don’t. But I have a great appreciation for the fans.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Please Vince, spare us the politically correct, gotta-play-to-the-UGa-homers bullshit. Your S-O-N Derek is coaching the University of Tennessee. You know, the product of your loins who has a chance to carry on the family name in the sport of college football long after you’re gone.

Just why are you showing so much loyalty to the school whose president, Michael Adams, repaid all your years of service by bouncing your ass onto the street?  And besides, it’s not like you got your degree there, you’re an Auburn grad.

I bet you’re being the better man by telling the AJC that crap.  Deep down inside, you want a Tennessee team that just missed upsetting LSU to come into Sanford Stadium and stomp a mudhole in Georgia’s ass.  I know you do.

◊ Boise State gets leapfrogged sooner than I thought they would

Look, we all knew it was going to happen, that some team would put together a decent string of wins and take away that third spot in the polls from Boise State, no matter what Boise State did on the field.  I just thought it would take a few more weeks than it actually did.

Following a 52-31 win over Stanford, Oregon is the team that got enough love to bump Boise State down a notch in the polls.  You know, the same Oregon program that’s not that far removed from getting beat by Boise State (that was on September 3, 2009).

I find it a little curious that Oregon got that much credit for being Stanford.  While I love the job that Jim Harbaugh has done there by getting a lot of mileage out of a throwback style of football, at the end of the day, it’s still friggin’ Stanford.  In terms of overall talent and number of signature wins, it’s a program that’s still lacking.

What did Boise State itself do to deserve its poll demotion?  Well, pretty much nothing.   They beat WAC rival New Mexico State by a 59-0 count.  You know, the way a good team is supposed to do when faced with inferior opposition.  The Boise State naysayers can crow all they want, but I guarantee you that if the Broncos and Ducks hooked up right now, the Broncos would win by double digits…just like last season.

◊ Just a moment on baseball, because it is October, after all

Here’s another reason why the Baltimore Orioles are now commonly referred to as “the once proud Baltimore Orioles”:

Brian Roberts knocked himself out of the Baltimore Orioles’ lineup. Literally.

The veteran second baseman explained Monday that he missed the last six games of the season for concussion-like symptoms after hitting himself in the helmet with a bat.

Roberts, who missed much of the season with injuries, thinks it happened last Monday, after a ninth-inning strikeout against the Tampa Bay Rays.

“In frustration [after a strikeout], I whacked myself on the head with my bat in the ninth. I had my helmet on,” Roberts told reporters. “It’s something I’ve done a million times, but I still can’t tell you for sure if that was it. But that’s the only thing that I can point to because that night and the next morning, I just didn’t feel good. So it’s been going on since then.” (ESPN.com)

The dude gave HIMSELF a concussion, how blessed is that?  I bet he subconsciously did so to miss playing in yet another string of meaningless season ending games for Baltimore.  If Major League Baseball is a pair of Jim Palmer’s Jockey underwear, then the O’s are pretty much an ill-timed shart.

◊ The Not-So-Great Wall of Chicago

Speaking of things that can give you a concussion, how about that Chicago Bear offensive line?  In the highest rated NFL regular season prime time game in quite some time, the Bear front wall allowed New York Giant defenders to accumulate what seemed like 58 sacks (it was actually 10).

The Giants knocked Jay Cutler out of the game with a concussion and then damn near killed Todd Collins after that.  No joke, for a few seconds I thought Collins was dead.  Following the game, a revised list of America’s most dangerous occupations was released, it goes as follows:

1. Coal miner
2. U.S. soldier
3. Detroit police officer
4. Chicago Bears quarterback

That’s why I found the following tweet from former Illinois quarterback Juice Williams to be so damn funny:

If Juice does get the call and actually does see the field, he’ll get MANY chances to show off his mobility.

◊ A tweet that probably made Dickie V. crap his pants…

No announcer/analyst/studio host sticks his nose further up the backsides of more college basketball coaches than Dick Vitale.  Of course Stuart Scott is every bit the brownnoser as Dickie V., but Stu prefers the ass cracks of NBA’ers and NFL’ers.

With that in mind, here’s a tweet from Kentucky coach John Calipari that probably sent Vitale into spastic convulsions of glee.  Unlike other college coaches who pretty much roll their eyes at the guy, Calipari actually shows Vitale some love here:

As a result of this, do you have any idea how much on-air love Dickie V. will show Calipari now?  I suspect we’ll get nuggets like “NCAA titles don’t matter, baby, John Calipari is the greatest coach ever!” and “The NCAA should be ashamed of itself for the Enes Kanter witch hunt!”

◊ …while Malcolm Delaney’s tweet makes me feel so white

Staying on the Twitter vibe, I came across the following tweet from injured Virginia Tech basketball player J.T. Thompson.  First, let me provide some background: this is Thompson re-tweeting something initially posted by his teammate, Malcolm Delaney.  The “#TTTT” hash tag  refers to “To Tell the Truth Tuesday.”  Here’s Delaney dropping his truth:

I am going to be brutally honest here…it took me a few minutes to decipher what the hell his tweet meant, but I think I’ve got it.  Basically, what Delaney is saying is that no African-America male will marry a woman who was already attached when he met her.  Or something like that.

Yup, it’s days like these when I just don’t feel as hip as I used to.  I’ve reached that special age that Chris Rock spoke about, when a man really isn’t old, he’s just too old to be in the club.

◊ San Diego State is having a solid season so far

Try this one on for size: San Diego State is 3-1 and really should be 4-0.  Yup, if it hadn’t been for that monumentally boneheaded defensive screw up in the last minute at Missouri, the Aztecs would have a perfect record.

I’ll tell you what I love about the job head coach Brady Hoke is doing: his team is strong in the kicking game.  Kicker Abel Perez is the current MWC leader in kickoffs for touchback with 11 and the Aztecs lead the conference in net punting (40.8 avg.).

Also, San Diego State leads the MWC and is 7th nationally in total offense at 509.5 ypg.  A good chunk of that yardage is being put up by freshman running back Ronnie Hillman, who’s run for 532 yards and 8 touchdowns so far in what could be shaping up to be a 1,400 yard/17 touchdown type of season for him.

As SDSU prepares for its road game with BYU, what you’ve got is a pretty dramatic shift from recent history: the Aztecs are currently on the board as 5.5-point favorites.  Of course that’s a function of how far the fortunes of BYU football have fallen this season, but don’t discount SDSU.  If they take care of business in Provo, the schedule lays out well for them.  The Aztecs could be 8-1 going into a November 13 trip to TCU.

Oregon’s Chip Kelly loses his mind in Neyland Stadium

I guess Jeremiah Masoli and LeGarrette Blount really did make Chip Kelly batshit nuts:

Raymond Cotton’s case of nitwit-itis torpedoes Ole Miss’s QB depth chart

A few weeks ago, Raymond Cotton was Ole Miss’s quarterback of the future.  Today, he’s on the verge of being South Alabama’s quarterback of the future.  How did it come to this?

For starters, Cotton’s never been completely healthy since he signed with Ole Miss in 2009.  A torn labrum in his throwing shoulder has only been further irritated by the increased number of passes he’s had to throw since becoming a collegian.

However, that injury didn’t prevent him from participating in the Ole Miss spring game this year, a game in which he didn’t fail to impress (5-of-7 for 178 yards and 2 scores).  But sophomore Nathan Stanley, who’s backed up Jevan Snead the last two seasons, also had a pretty good effort, going 11-of-16 for 166 yards and a couple of scores.

Following the game, here’s what Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt had to say:

“We’re not afraid to play Raymond Cotton,” Nutt said. “He’s can rise to the occasion. We will make a decision on his physical status in the next two weeks. The best case scenario is if Raymond can rehab and play, but we’re going to do what is best for Raymond.” (AP)

If you’re Nutt, what are your options?  Your backup quarterback from the previous season didn’t do anything to fall out of the race for the starting job while your prized redshirt freshman is nursing a bum shoulder.

It’s obvious to everyone observing the situation that Nutt couldn’t very well name Cotton the starter.  But instead of coming out and saying just that, Nutt hedged his bets a little bit.  His motivation for doing so may have been a desire to keep his quarterback’s spirits up.

However, instead of comforting Cotton, Nutt’s approach appeared to have emboldened him.  Reports started circulating weeks ago that he expected a lot of playing time this fall ahead of Stanley, whose superior knowledge of the offense didn’t appear to be that big of a deal to Cotton.

Apparently Cotton is of the belief that SEC coaches start inexperienced quarterbacks who have torn labrums all the time, it’s not that big of a deal.  Good health and familiarity with the playbook?  I guess those are both HIGHLY overrated attributes in the mind of a redshirt freshman.

If you think Cotton was getting these crazy theories on depth chart management from his parents, think again.  They, along with Ole Miss coaches, had been telling him to stay put:

“If (Raymond) listens to mom and dad, he’ll make the right decision,” Nutt said.

On Friday at Southeastern Conference Media Days, Nutt said Cotton’s status with the team was still uncertain. The redshirt freshman quarterback has told people on campus he plans on transferring after the summer semester, but Nutt still wants him to stay.

The third-year Ole Miss coach said he hoped to meet with Cotton and his parents sometime on Friday, and that the issues could be resolved by the end of the weekend. (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)

Oh, there was a resolution, alright: Raymond Cotton is transferring, with a likely destination being South Alabama.  Why South Alabama?  He’s familiar with the Mobile area after his family moved there following his senior year of high school in Ft. Meade, Md.

It appears that Nutt and his staff did everything in their power to keep him in the fold.  Unfortunately for them, they were dealing with a kid who refused to look at the big picture.

Cotton’s head scratcher of a move now leaves Ole Miss with two scholarship quarterbacks, the aforementioned Stanley and junior college transfer Randall Mackey.  Ouch.

Suddenly, Ole Miss might be a very likely destination for Jeremiah Masoli, a guy whose rap sheet sank what had been a fantastic career at Oregon.

He’s got a year of eligibility left and can play immediately because he’s got his undergrad degree in hand.  But can Nutt afford to roll the dice on a troubled player who had two run-ins with the law in a six month period?

I don’t think Nutt really has a choice at this point, not with his quarterback depth chart in ruins.  He’d probably settle for a decent kid to fill the third string spot at this point.  But it would be a mighty nice luxury if the quick fix happened to be one of college football’s most dynamic talents.