The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 9/7

My ongoing tribute to the biggest nitwit in the history of basic cable TV. Here’s to you, Larry:

◊  Chip Towers had this fascinating tidbit from his AJC recruiting blog today:

A lot of people saw and/or heard about Isaiah Crowell’s 90-yard touchdown run in Carver-Columbus’ 14-0 win over Buford this past weekend. What they probably didn’t see was what happened at the end of Crowell’s scoring jaunt. As he celebrated his way back down the sideline, he stopped and spontaneously hugged Georgia coach Mark Richt, according to several eyewitness accounts. Richt was attending the game along with UGA running backs coach Bryan McClendon (and coaches from Auburn, Tennessee and several other schools). Even though Crowell initiated the “contact,” it’s unclear if the hug constituted some sort of NCAA secondary violation. The general rule is only a handshake is permitted. But given the sometimes illogical reasoning in the NCAA manual, you never know. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Well, at least Crowell didn’t pick up any bags left on the sideline by Georgia assistant head coach Rodney Garner.

◊ I don’t know what’s douchier, a corporation giving tons of money to candidates running for office or the flash mob assembled to protest the practice. After watching the following, I’ll call it a tie:

Also, since when did earthy, hairy armpitted women get to be so angry? I wonder if Secret loses its effectiveness in a thicket of hair:

◊  Herb Gould of the Chicago Sun-Times weighs in with this gem on the state of Illinois football:

It’s a measure of how low expectations are, and how bare the cupboard seems to be, that there are encouraging signs from a game in which Illinois blew a 10-point halftime lead and lost 23-13 Saturday to a middling Missouri team. (Chicago Sun-Times)

BLESSED. I predict that by this time next year, Ron Zook will be providing in-game color commentary for the Big Ten Network.  My guess is that he’ll be every bit as irritating at the job as Craig James or Bob Davie.

◊  Speaking of Craig James, few public figures seem to generate as much ill will in the Twitterverse than he does.  It almost seems like Twitter was invented solely for the purpose of giving people an outlet to vent about what a moron he is.  Here’s a sampling (and these are on the tame side):

◊  The word coming out of Lawrence today is that Lew Perkins has retired as Kansas AD.  I guess he finally saved enough ticket scalping money to get that lake house he’s had his eye on.

◊ Speaking of AD’s, Maryland has a new one in Kevin Anderson. Priority number one for him should be finding a way to wiggle out of that ridiculous head coach-in-waiting contract that previous AD Debbie Yow signed offensive coordinator James Franklin to in 2009.

Franklin’s supposedly a solid young coach…but you couldn’t tell that from the mediocre offenses he’s put on the field.  If this season is indeed Ralph Friedgen’s last, I don’t see how an ACC school could promote Franklin when guys like Mike Leach and Al Golden are out there for the taking.

◊  I can’t dig up Floyd Mayweather’s strange, racist rant against Manny Pacquiao on YouTube so I’ll just provide this snippet after watching it on other (less embeddable) sites:

“We gonna cook that motherfucker (that person being Pacquiao) with some cats and dogs.  And rice with a little bit of cat, rice with a little bit of barbecued dog.”

In lieu of the actual video, I’ll just provide this NSFW clip because I had the same reaction listening to Mayweather as Donnie has here when he’s listening to the Jesus:

Could you imagine if Vitali Klitschko launched into a similar rant about Shannon Briggs that included references to goofy racial stereotypes like fried chicken and watermelon?  The WBC would immediately strip him of his heavyweight title and Al Sharpton would join forces with Don King to clear boxing of its “racist element.”

◊ It may have slipped under your radar, but Iowa running back Brandon Wegher is pretty much no longer an Iowa running back.  After a promising freshman season last year in which he ran for 641 yards and 8 scores, he left the team in August to supposedly tend to personal issues.

Iowa was pretty damn vague when it came to what the deal was.  Was it a grade issue?  Did he have family matters to attend to?  Did he just go batshit nuts?  Who knows, but it’s being reported that his time as a Hawkeye is done.

Jimbo Fisher gets a blue chip recruit, then gets feisty

You’re the first year head coach of a big time college football program.  This particular program has lost to its arch rival six straight times by an average score of 34-12.  So how do you approach the season?

If you’re Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher, you get right in that rival’s grill, which is exactly what he should do.  Andrew Carter of the Orlando Sentinel provides the particulars:

Just returned from the annual Florida State football kickoff luncheon. Some tidbits:

-So you know how Urban Meyer never refers to Florida State by name? Always calls ‘em that “school out west.” Well, seems like Jimbo Fisher has taken note. While Fisher was breaking down the schedule during his “State of the Seminoles” address, he finally got to the Florida game at the end of the season. But he didn’t mention Florida as “Florida” or even “the Gators.” No, Fisher called Florida “that little team down the road.” (Orlando Sentinel)

What other choice does Fisher have?  He’s been a coach in waiting for a legend who handcuffed the school because he didn’t feel like retiring at a reasonable age.  As a result, Florida State drifted into mediocrity, something a program with its resources, fan base, location and recent history had no business doing.

Florida State is still Florida State, the expectations haven’t dissipated despite a decidedly uninspired product that’s been put on the field the last few years.  Not so long ago, when Florida was wandering in a daze through the last few years of Steve Spurrier’s tenure and the train wreck that was the Ron Zook Era, FSU was the nation’s top program.

So Fisher knows he’s only got a limited amount of time to get the Seminoles at or near that level or else he’s heading to North Alabama to ask Terry Bowden about any potential job openings.  Patience is friggin’ non-existent in Tallahassee these days.

With that in mind, Fisher’s managed to energize the fan base a few weeks before the start of the season not only through his bravado but also by making a nice recruiting splash.  The verbal earlier this week from James Wilder (yes, the son of that James Wilder) out of Tampa not only gained Fisher a high profile recruit, but also one who happened to be very high on Florida’s wish list.

Here’s Mike Bianchi’s take on the commitment:

If you don’t think this was a huge victory for Florida State, I suggest you click on the UF recruiting boards and see all the whining about Wilder’s decision. Gator recruitniks are beside themselves, saying everything from Fisher deceived  Wilder and told him only what he wanted to hear about playing running back … to Wilder really isn’t all that good anyway … to Wilder just wants to be big fish in a small pond (the ACC). (Orlando Sentinel)

C’mon Mike, let’s not get too carried away with the reaction of Gator Nation.  After all, the fan base of any superpower program goes postal when a high profile recruit they thought was theirs ends up with an arch rival.  But the point was made, Florida State is still an extremely formidable recruiting foe for any school that’s angling for top Sunshine State talent, Florida included.

The next step for Fisher is the hardest, and that’s getting it done on the field.  It’s imperative that the Seminoles have a good showing on September 11 when they visit Oklahoma.  If not, then the new head coach will be hearing some heavy duty grumbling a scant two games into his tenure.