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.

The crazy end to the Tennessee-LSU game was crazier than you realized

Good friggin’ lord, what an ending to that Tennessee-LSU game. Down by 4 and out of time outs, LSU faced a 3rd and goal at the 1-yard line. That’s when the killer clock management skills of Les Miles really kicked in.

LSU tried to substitute multiple players, but the personnel shuffle resembled the last desperate evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Tiger players were running this way while others were running the other way…in other words, it looked like a Miles coached team.

When the offense finally got set, the ball was snapped prematurely to quarterback Jordan Jefferson. It skidded through his hands and onto the ground, and it looked like Tennessee had held on for a 14-10 victory.

But things were actually just getting interesting. While LSU was attempting its own crappily executed substitution, Tennessee was hurriedly trying to match its own personnel. In doing so, they had 13 players on the field at the snap.

That penalty gave LSU one more play, and they wouldn’t screw that one up, even with Miles on the sideline. Stevan Ridley plunged into the end zone and the Tigers had themselves an improbable 16-14 victory. To say that Tennessee coach Derek Dooley was pissed would be the understatement of the year:

Here’s where things get even more interesting than when I said they had already gotten interesting. It seems that on the same play where Tennessee got its illegal participation penalty, LSU committed an infraction of its own. You see, you sorta can’t take off your helmet and throw it to the ground while a play is still unfolding. But this video from Sports By Brooks shows that LSU’s T-Bob Hebert did just that:

They say it’s better to be lucky than good. But it appears that it’s better to be Les Miles than to be lucky. This guy didn’t just make a deal with the devil to sell his soul, he gave the great horned one a killer back massage afterward just to make sure the deal was good and sealed.

The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 10/2

In this edition of the LKSOC…the mess with UNC football gets worse, the worst moments of Tennessee DB’s are revisited and Barry Switzer shares some precious memories:

◊ It looks like John Blake was getting straight paid by Gary Wichard

The investigation into the funny business North Carolina football team has revealed that agent Gary Wichard of Pro Tect Management and former Tar Heel assistant coach Jon Blake were just a little more than casual acquaintances. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! provides a few of the particulars right here:

Time and a slew of different investigative bodies will determine the extent of Blake and Wichard’s relationship and whether it involved the recruitment of Tar Heel players.  Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday the existence of at least six wire transfers from Wichard’s private bank to Blake, a credit card from Wichard’s Pro Tect Management in Blake’s name and a personal loan given to the long-time college coach.  Blake previously worked for Wichard. (Yahoo! Sports)

C’mon Dan, you’re wondering whether or not Wichard’s relationship with Blake involved the recruitment of Tar Heel players?  Jesus, maybe you need a refresher course, it’s all ball bearings nowadays ($1 To Irwin Fletcher).  Why else would Wichard be funneling money to him?  Perhaps you need that stuff you referenced put together in bullet point format, you know, to make it more understandable:

• Six wire transfers from Wichard’s bank, The First National Bank of Long Island, to Blake

• A $45,000 personal loan to Blake from The First National Bank of Long Island

• A Pro Tect Management credit card that was issued to Blake

Here’s the problem facing UNC with this mess: this isn’t some agent who’s snooping around campus trying to entice football players to sign with him using $100 handshakes. This involved an actual, honest to goodness assistant coach who was on an agent’s payroll. If people thought the punishment USC got was harsh, wait until they get a load of the penalties that UNC football will be hit with down the road.

◊ Players’ lowest moments, saved for posterity

Guess who wishes YouTube (and by extension the interwebs) was never invented? If you said, “Tennessee defensive backs,” you’d be correct:

◊ Despite beating Texas, UCLA’s still pretty crappy

With a win over Washington State today, UCLA can do something I thought was impossible less than two weeks ago: they can move over .500 for the season. That’s yet another unexpected result to come out of the Bruins’ mindboggling road win over Texas this past Saturday.

But I’m not ready to check this one off in the “W” column for the Bruins just because it’s lowly Wazzu that’s coming to town. That’s because UCLA is still a football team with a one dimensional offense and a defense that’s yielding 4.6 yards a carry to the opposition.

I’m not backing off of my preseason bottom 10 ranking for Wazzu, because this is a team that most certainly sucks ass. But what better opportunity for a Pac-10 road win will Paul Wulff’s team have?

The glaring flaw thus far for the Cougars has been defending the pass. Washington State has the nation’s 116th-ranked pass defense, giving up 286.2 yards a game and 13 scoring tosses already this season. But UCLA isn’t really equipped to take advantage of that weakness, currently ranking 118th nationally in pass offense.

Will Wazzu have enough pride to suck it up, stuff the Bruin rushing attack and make this one interesting? Heck, might as well try to force a shootout, it’s the best approach to take.

◊ Sorry Glenn, there’s always someone with a camera

Remember rocker Glenn Danzig, the lead singer for the band that carries his name? If not, let me refresh your memory:

That was back in the early 90’s. Here’s Glenn today, wearing his own band’s t-shirt and lugging kitty litter to his car:

After seeing this, I’m convinced that somewhere there’s a picture of Dave Mustaine cleaning out a port-a-potty. Please, interwebs, give that treasure to me.

◊ Grab an older guy’s hand and avoid that shit on the ground

Here’s an epic excerpt from a Dallas Morning News interview with former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. Here he shares some of his fondest memories of playing Texas every year in the Cotton Bowl:

Well, it’s me telling those freshmen that have never been down that ramp to watch where Bevo’s been because it will be a big pile, and I don’t want you to step in it. I told the rookies to grab the hand of a veteran and they will lead you down, because there will be so many stars in your eyes that you won’t even look down to see all of that stuff.  To go on that field is a great excitement and atmosphere, but nothing tops being in the locker room after winning the ball game. (Dallas Morning News)

Now that I think about it, I guess getting shit on his cleats would be pretty damn demoralizing for an Oklahoma freshman participating in his first Red River Shootout.

The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 9/28

In this edition of the LKSOC…Notre Dame can’t stop anybody, the Segway guy meets his end on a Segway and the new Terry Dean:

◊ The generosity of the Irish

Notre Dame has played three teams this season that are currently ranked (Michigan, Michigan State and Stanford). In those contests, the Irish rolled up an extremely robust 1,347 combined yards of total offense (449 ypg). What do they have to show for that fine body of offensive work? An 0-3 record in those games.

That’s because Notre Dame hasn’t come close to stopping any of the aforementioned teams. Total yards per game allowed against that trio? 471. Total yards per play given up to those same teams? A brutal 6.0 per snap.

It’s the same old same old in regard to Brian Kelly-coached teams playing ranked opposition. Last season, his Cincinnati Bearcats averaged 447.5 ypg of total offense against three ranked opponents but also yielded 472.7 ypg in those same games.  To take the next step, Kelly’s got to figure out how to slow down good teams.

◊ Who NOT to hug after a big win

Word of advice to Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton…after winning a big game, try to refrain from hugging the referee like you did as the clock ran down to 0:00 in your team’s 35-27 victory over South Carolina.  It just looks, well, sort of odd:

◊ I know why the caged Stephen Garcia sings

When does one generation end and the next one begin?  I ask this because we’re not that far removed from Steve Spurrier tossing Terry Dean aside in favor of Danny Wuerrfel.  So is it too soon to call Stephen Garcia this generation’s Terry Dean?  Or should I just call him Terry Dean Part 2?

This past Saturday, Garcia looked pretty damn masterful in leading South Carolina to a 20-7 lead over Auburn.  But after he caught a case of the fumbles that Auburn took advantage of, Spurrier yanked him in favor of true freshman Connor Shaw.  Of course Shaw proceeded to throw two interceptions, because that’s what a wet behind the ears kid does when he’s thrown into the fire that way.

The funny thing is, the move was such a head scratcher that a friend of mine who was surfing multiple games texted me to ask how Garcia got hurt.  You know, because that’s the only logical reason why a true freshman would have replaced him at that point in the game.  My reply?  “Hurt?  No, Garcia just got Terry Deaned.”

Jesus, OBC, I know you were pissed at Garcia, but in lieu of taking it out on him the way you did, why not wait until the next practice to scream at him in front of the team?  Instead, you chose to take away your team’s best chance to win a meaningful SEC road game.

I know people want to knock the production of Spurrier’s quarterbacks at South Carolina and imply that means that the studs he had at Florida were infinitely better.  While that’s true to a point, I also think defenses back in the 1990’s were slightly less evolved than they are now.  Back then, a Spurrier quarterback could just throw the skinny post at will.  Today, they just can’t, and the last person who seems to understand that is Steve Spurrier.

In regard to Dean, here’s a fascinating quote from Spurrier from 1994:

“I’ve done a lousy job coaching Terry Dean, and I felt like at this time Danny deserved a chance to be our player based on performance,” coach Steve Spurrier said Tuesday.  “I just haven’t been able to get Terry to play the way I’d like him to. I just haven’t done a very good job preparing him.” (Orlando Sentinel)

If Shaw assumes the starting quarterback job on a full-time basis, expect a very similar quote from the OBC in about a month regarding Garcia.

◊ Would this be like Burger King’s CEO choking to death on a Whopper?

Talk about a screwed up way to meet your end: Jimi Heselden, the owner of the company that manufactures Segways, died after driving his own personal Segway over a cliff.  This picture from the Daily Mail provides all the details you need to know:

◊ A big road test = a first for an awful lot of Volunteer players

As if you need any more proof that Tennessee’s football program is essentially starting over from scratch, Volunteer coach Derek Dooley dropped the following nugget concerning his team’s trip to LSU this coming Saturday:

“The bigger challenge besides that is it’s going to be the first road game for almost half of our travel squad. I think I counted about 30 guys out of the – we’ll probably travel 66 to 68 guys — 30 of them have never even been on a road trip at Tennessee. So we’ll have to talk a lot about that and how we handle it professionally and how we handle the crowd, and a hostile environment. So a lot of challenges this week.” (Chattanoogan.com)

◊ The Big 12 race is interesting again…maybe

This Thursday night’s contest between Texas A&M and Oklahoma State is mighty intriguing on a couple of levels.  First off, if you like points, this one should have plenty of them: OSU is currently first nationally in total offense (596 ypg) while Texas A&M checks in at #10 (501.3 ypg).

The second is that the Big 12 is suddenly a helluva lot more wide open than it initially appeared to be.  With Texas getting kicked in the teeth by UCLA, Oklahoma not exactly looking invincible and Nebraska looking to be very good but not quite great, who’s to say an A&M or OSU couldn’t make this thing very interesting by season’s end?  Hell, even K-State is 4-0 right now.

A road win over OSU might give Mike Sherman the in with Aggie fans that he’s so desperately wanted.  Is it just me, or have they wanted him fired since BEFORE he was actually hired?  It’s hard to tell who Aggie fans dislike more, Sherman or Mack Brown.

As for Oklahoma State, how about the season Brandon Weedon’s been having at quarterback?  I know, I know, there are 6-A schools in Texas high school football that have played a tougher schedule to this point, but try to turn your nose down for just a second and give the kid a break.  He’s averaging 325 ypg passing on 9.7 yards an attempt, and unlike Houston’s Case Keenum, Weedon doesn’t keep throwing it to the other team.

◊ Calipari’s silly excuses

Here is an excerpt of John Calipari’s interview with Jon Soloman of the Birmingham News this week:

Calipari suggested Kentucky lost to West Virginia in the Elite Eight last season in part because the Wildcats were looking ahead to Duke in the Final Four.

“Do you know how badly we wanted to play Duke?” Calipari said. “I think that’s why we played so badly against West Virginia. We wanted Duke so badly we couldn’t see straight.”

Kentucky shot 4 of 32 on 3-pointers in the loss to West Virginia. (Birmingham News)

That’s a pretty good excuse…except for the fact that at the time of his own team’s loss, Duke hadn’t played Baylor yet in its own regional final.  Kind of hard to look ahead to playing a team that hasn’t yet advanced.

◊ This and that

LSU is apparently staying with Jordan Jefferson at quarterback.  Yeah, as if there’s a more attractive option on the depth chart…Talk about a couple of teams that dodged bullets this past Saturday: UCF had Kansas State dead to rights before losing, and UAB was shoveling dirt on Tennessee’s coffin before letting that one slip away…Speaking of ones that got away, what a couple of batshit stupid 4th quarter throws by Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett in his team’s narrow loss to top ranked Alabama.  Heisman my ass…Because no intraconference play has yet to begin in the Big East, the overall records of its teams are used to sort them out in the standings.  So as of right now, Syracuse sits atop the league at 3-1 while Cincinnati is 1-3 and in last place.  It’s still VERY early, but what a difference a season makes.

Bruce Pearl goes from crusader to hypocrite

Twenty years ago, a little known Iowa men’s basketball assistant named Bruce Pearl blew the whistle on Illinois’s recruitment of Deon Thomas.  Here’s part of his correspondence with the NCAA where he spilled his guts:

December 8, 1988

It was during a one hour conversation to Simeon basketball recruit Deon Thomas that I first became aware of any NCAA rules violations being committed by the University of Illinois.

Deon told me that Assistant Basketball Coach, Jimmy Collins, offered him and his grandmother, Bernice McGary, the opportunity to move to a nicer building or apartment. They would finance the move and take care of the additional expense of a more comfortable place.

According to Deon, he told Jimmy Collins that his grandmother did not want to move. Jimmy then offered to have her place at 1837 W. Washburn fixed up so it would be nicer and most importantly, more secure. Deon would then be able to leave his grandmother in Chicago, attend the University of Illinois in Champaign and not worry about her well being. Taking care of his grandmother was very important to Deon. He loves his grandmother very much. She has taken care of him for the last several years when no one else would.

I asked Deon how he felt about the offer and also why he was telling me. He said that at first he was insulted. He prides himself on being honest and religious. However, the idea of helping his grandmother very much appealed to him.

I asked him if he would rather go to the University of Illinois and have his grandmother’s place fixed up by them or come to the University of Iowa and fix it up himself. He asked for some clarification. I told him that if he came to Iowa, we would make sure he had a good summer job, from both the financial, as well as the experience side of things. He would then little by little send her some money to make home improvements. He was talking about food, clothing, house paint and roof shingles. We both decided at the time it would be better if he earned the money himself rater than having it given to him. Deon was dead set against being bought. He indicated to me that he didn’t want to have a reputation like Marcus Liberty. I asked what that meant, and he answered $75,000 and a car.

What a courageous act by an honest young man who took it upon himself to shed the light of truth and justice on the evildoers of college basketball.  But fast forward to the present and the Bruce Pearl you’ll find isn’t so much a crusader as he is a hypocrite.  Here he is spilling his guts again:

“I’ve made some serious mistakes, and for that I’m truly sorry,” Pearl said tearfully at a news conference. “I provided incorrect and misleading information to the NCAA. I’ve learned some invaluable lessons. After I provided the false and misleading information, subsequently I went back and corrected the record.

“I learned that it’s not OK to tell the truth most of the time, but you’ve got to tell the truth all of the time,” he said. (Associated Press)

Because Pearl lied, he’s now been forced to take a $1.5 million pay cut and is banned from off campus recruiting for a year starting September 24.  I guess two decades is just long enough for a guy to totally lose his ethics.

But maybe we should have seen this coming years ago.  After all, the slimeball Pump twins helped Pearl get his current job.  If that wasn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is.

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