Bleacher Report - Articles by Gerald Ball

Are USC's Struggles Really Due To An Improved Pac-10? I Say NO!

Gerald Ball — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:07:08 -0500

In trying to explain USC's disappointing season, which goes way beyond losing a ton of players to the NFL draft and both coordinators to Washington. Carroll is claiming that the reason is that the rest of the Pac-10 has improved. This echoes what many western sportswriters have been claiming ... that this Pac-10 is the best and deepest that it has been in years , possibly ever. However, the media and fans should not let Carroll off the hook so easily.

Exhibit A

If USC's struggles are due to an improved Pac-10, how come USC has been less than impressive out of conference? USC went from blowing out Ohio State 32-3 to eking by them 18-15 thanks mostly to the Buckeyes' own incompetence. They also went from thrashing Notre Dame 38-3 to needing a defensive stop to preserve a 34-27 victory, and even their 56-3 against San Jose State was not nearly as impressive as the score indicates. Another thing about the Ohio State game: do not forget that the Buckeyes also lost a ton of players, including their top 2 WRs, top 2 RBs and left tackle.

Exhibit B

The evidence that the Pac-10 is improved is lacking. Or should I say that if it is improved, then it only means that the Pac-10 was really bad, no better than a good mid-major league like Conference USA, before this year. Again, look at their performances out of conference.

Arizona State: beat Idaho State and 6-4 Louisiana-Monroe , lost to 6-4 Georgia .

UCLA: beat San Diego State, 6-5 Kansas State , 5-5 Tennessee .

Washington: beat 7-4 Idaho , lost to 8-2 LSU and 6-4 Notre Dame .

Arizona: beat 7-2 Central Michigan and Northern Arizona, lost to 9-2 Iowa .

Oregon: beat 4-8 Purdue and 8-1 Utah , lost to 10-0 Boise .

Stanford: beat San Jose State, lost to 4-7 Wake Forest , 6-4 Notre Dame pending.

California: beat Eastern Washington, 2-7 Maryland , 5-5 Minnesota .

Washington State: beat 5-4 SMU , lost to 3-6 Hawaii and 6-4 Notre Dame .

Oregon State: beat Portland State and 4-6 UNLV, lost to 10-0 Cincinnati .

So, the best Pac-10 victories are over Louisiana-Monroe, SMU, Idaho, Central Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, Purdue, Kansas State, Tennessee and Utah. Of those 5 are mid-majors, 5 are BCS conference schools that are not yet bowl eligible (Kansas State has 6 wins, but 2 of them to FCS schools, plus they lost to 5-5 Louisiana-Lafayette), and only one is ranked (Utah).

Meanwhile, with the exception of USC and UCLA, the Pac-10 blew their chances to win statement nonconference games. Arizona State lost to Georgia, Washington lost to Notre Dame, Arizona lost to Iowa, Oregon lost to Boise, Stanford lost to Wake Forest, and Oregon State lost to Cincinnati. Further, the Iowa, Boise and Cincinnati losses were by double digits, and further still the Pac-10 teams lost both legs of home-and-home series to Boise and Cincinnati.

Now it is not that the Pac-10 has been dreadful out of conference like the Big 12 this year or the Big 10 last year. Rather, it is that beating Louisiana-Monroe, SMU, Idaho, Central Michigan, Maryland, Purdue, Minnesota, Kansas State, Tennessee and #23 Utah merely represent at best a typical nonconference performance. This is a major issue for the Pac-10, as their claim to fame—especially against the SEC—is superior performance in nonconference games.

However, beating eight good teams out of conference (and this is with a rather charitable standard for "good" as it includes BCS conference teams with terrible records like Purdue and Maryland, and lower mid-majors like Idaho and Idaho, ranked 76, 78, 90 and 120 by Sagarin ) is in no way noteworthy.

As a matter of fact, the SEC equals that number even if you exclude Florida and Alabama from the discussion (7-3 Ohio, Arizona State, 4-5 North Carolina State, 3-6 Louisville, 5-4 Louisiana-Monroe, 7-3 West Virginia, Washington, Louisiana-Lafayette, 5-5 Texas A&M, 7-3 Troy) for 10 teams. Pac-10 fans may claim that I am including lower-mid majors and losing teams from BCS conferences to pad the SEC's case, but they are ignoring that without such considerations it is the Pac-10's Utah and Central Michigan versus the SEC's West Virginia and Ohio, a virtual wash. Even if you change it it to give the Pac-10 a maximum benefit (only ranked mid-majors and likely bowl teams) there is the Pac-10's Utah, Minnesota, Tennessee and Kansas State versus the SEC's West Virginia and Texas A&M.

And that's just the SEC, who could care less about nonconference games. Consider the ACC and leave off likely champion Georgia Tech. Their quality victories include BYU, Middle Tennessee State, Central Michigan, Kent State, Oklahoma, Central Florida, Marshall, Nebraska, East Carolina (twice), Indiana, Connecticut, Stanford and Pitt. That's 14 teams, with 3 of them ranked (#8 Pitt, #18 BYU, #25 Nebraska).

Even if you account for the ACC being a 12 team league by lopping off a good team and a bad one, you still have 11. And the ACC still has games against Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and South Florida to go, and they will win 2 of those 4.

So, the idea that USC's struggles this year are due to a vastly improved Pac-10 has to be challenged. Either it isn't true and the Pac-10 is really no better than it generally is (with last year being a down year and this year being an average one) or it is true, meaning that the Pac-10 is a terrible football conference, so bad that even in one of its better years it is still worse than the ACC, which is primarily a basketball conference.

My position is the former. Where the Pac-10 clearly had a down year last year (2-6 against the Mountain West, only 5 bowl eligible teams), this year the Pac-10 is as strong as it generally is. Thus, this is clearly Pete Carroll's worst USC team since his first, which finished with a 6-6 record in 2001. Pac-10 fans should recall that 2001 was the year that Oregon went 11-1, Washington State 10-2, Stanford 9-3, UCLA 7-4, and Washington 7-6, Arizona 5-6, Oregon State 5-6 and Arizona State 4-7.

For Carroll to claim that the Pac-10 is anywhere near as tough this year as it was in 2001 - when 3 Pac-10 teams could have conceivably played for the national title and 2 Pac-10 teams would have easily gotten 2 teams in the BCS under this current format - was just as disingenuous as Carroll's asking Jim Harbaugh "what's your deal?" over that 2 point conversion. Carroll knows it, which is why he went on to allude that Stanford has better athletes than USC does.

Bottom line: the Pac-10 isn't that tough this year. Pete Carroll just wants you to think that it is so you won't ask him too many questions about the horrible coaching job that his staff has been putting in lately. Case in point: all those four and five star players at WR and RB and not a single one is among the better players in college football at his position. The top USC RB has 932 yards rushing, the top WR 688 yards. Now you know why Mark Sanchez left, and why Carroll did a lot more than say "what's your deal?" at Sanchez's press conference!

Realistic Coaching Candidates For Notre Dame

Gerald Ball — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:20:35 -0500

Before you reject these names, please read the article I posted yesturday to understand why Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Brian Kelly or whatever other big name coach you can think of isn't walking through that door.

The place to dispute the notion that the top coaching candidates aren't falling over themselves to leave the great situations that they are already in to come into the decades-long mess that is Notre Dame is the link above. This article is for people to discuss candidates who A) might actually take the job and B) would succeed if they would.

In my opinion, the best choices for Notre Dame coach in recent years would have been Joe Tiller, formerly of Purdue, and after that Tom O'Brien of Boston College. Notre Dame had their chances to hire both but did not because the delusional alumni and supporters (again, read the article above) wanted "the big name."

No current candidate is as good a match. However, there are some general criteria that should guide the selection process:

A. The coach should be very knowledgeable and have deep ties in Notre Dame's primary recruiting areas, which are the midwest, the northeast, and increasingly California.

B. The coach should have a track record of success at programs with high entrance requirements for athletes.

C. The coach should have a track record of identifying talented athletes that are not highly recruited or well known, of developing raw athletes into good football players, and successfully using players that aren't the greatest of athletes.

D. The coach should have schemes on both sides of the ball that de-emphasize the need for elite offensive and defensive tackles.

Again, no candidate fits these requirements as well as Joe Tiller or Tom O'Brien would have, but here are candidates nonetheless:

1. Mike Leach, Texas Tech Head Coach
Negatives: Strange personality, no experience at institution with tough academic requirements for athletes, Texas Tech buyout. The first and best choice, ND should be negotiating with his agent already.

2. Kyle Whittingham, Utah Head Coach
Negatives: No ties to midwest, knows that he can easily have the next job to open up in California, Texas, Florida etc. He also has no experience at institution with tough academic requirements for athletes. Finally, he seems committed to home state school. It would be a good choice, but ND should focus on candidates they are more likely to get.

3. Skip Holtz, East Carolina Head Coach
Negatives: From a pure football perspective, not many. However, he turned down Syracuse last year, meaning that he likely has his designs on a particular job. ND should go after him, but not in a way that results in their getting publicly humiliated like Syracuse did last year.

4. Jim Grobe, Wake Forest Head Coach
Negatives: Needs to open up offense and be more aggressive in recruiting. He was unable to build on great 06-07 seasons. Grobe can be considered both a poor man's Brian Kelly and Frank Beamer, in that he is similar to both but not as good as either. Grobe would take the job if offered, and should be a fallback candidate.

The Next Tier

1. Butch Jones, Central Michigan head coach
Negatives: Jones doesn't have much experience and has no experience at a selective school for athletes. This fellow will be coaching in the Big East or Big 10 within five years, so ND should consider grabbing him now. He also wouldn't require a big salary, which would allow ND to finish paying off Charlie Weis' ten year contract.

2. Kevin Sumlin, Houston Head Coach
Negatives: Not much head coaching experience, which is the only reason why he isn't in the first tier. He has been an assistant at Washington State, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Purdue assistant head coach at Texas A&M, offensive coordinator at Oklahoma.

3. Garry Patterson, TCU Head Coach
Negatives: Few ties to the upper midwest (unless Kansas is relevant), no experience at a selective school for athletes. An excellent coach and candidate, however similar to Kyle Whittingham and Skip Holtz his willingness to leave a very good situation should be accurately gauged.

4. Mike Riley, Oregon State Head Coach
Negatives: Age, questionable commitment to recruiting, no midwest ties, loves current job, no history at school with high entrance requirements for athletes. He is on here because there is no better guy in the country at developing players and putting them in position to win ball games.

Guys to avoid:

1. Big name coaches—They aren't coming. See the link at the top.

2. Option coaches (i.e. coaches at Georgia Tech and Navy)—While option football probably gives Notre Dame their best chance at success, ND cannot afford a Michigan-type rebuilding process right now.

3. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern—Loves Northwestern, hates ND. Don't waste your time.

4. Assistants—Not necessarily because Bob Davie or Charlie Weis failed, but rather because ND really needs a guy to "run the program", meaning hire the best assistants, recruit and develop the best players, promote the program, work the administration, and do the political thing with alumni and boosters. The last thing that ND needs is another Xs and Os guy who will be too hands-on and involved with the gameplans and strategy. They need a CEO coach who will hire the best group of assistants and let them handle the bulk of the on-the-field and gameday duties while he serves as the face and leader of the program.

Notre Dame Needs to Quit Deluding Itself: How the Irish Can Return to Prominence

Gerald Ball — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:57:47 -0500

First things first: Should Charlie Weis be fired? Yes—but not for the reason that everyone thinks.

Instead, Weis needs to be fired because he should have never been hired to begin with. Weis was hired because of the delusion that as a big name coach he could quickly restore Notre Dame to prominence.

Now do not get me wrong; Weis is—or at least at the time of his initial hire WAS—a big name coach who COULD HAVE maintained a prominent program or restored a prominent program.

But he wasn't what they needed, which was someone to take a program that IS NOT PROMINENT and build it from the ground up.

The grand delusion is that Notre Dame is this dominant big-time program that has had a few bad years and only needs the right coach to get them back to the powerhouse that they have traditionally been.

The truth is that the powerhouse that Notre Dame was, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists, and that the only way that Notre Dame can even be relevant, let alone dominant, in the future is to let go of that past and allow someone to come in and start building a new future with a new tradition.

Notre Dame fans need to face facts. When Notre Dame won their last major bowl game, most of the kids who will sign letters of intent on national signing day were one or two years old—which means that when ND won their last national title, in 1988, virtually none of the kids being recruited right now were even born.

That was just the Lou Holtz era, a five-year quick fix that was actually harmful to Notre Dame's long-term prospects for success because it allowed Notre Dame's fans to keep living in the past for 15 more years.

The truth is that Notre Dame has not been a consistently relevant program nationally since the 1970s.

Consider how Notre Dame has changed since even the Holtz era, let alone the 1970s and prior. Consider how college football has changed, how the sports media has changed, and how society itself has changed.

They include the 85-scholarship limit, Proposition 48, Notre Dame's substantially increased admissions requirements for athletes, the passing game, meaningful integration in the South and Southwest, the full mainstreaming of Catholics into American society, huge population shifts from the Northeast and Midwest to the Southeast and Southwest, basketball taking the place of football as the most popular sport in the urban Northeast and Midwest, the rise of superconferences (and later the BCS), and the exponential rise in the sport's exposure and popularity due to cable television and the Internet.

A social scientist could spend hours explaining the various ways that these things drastically changed college football and not even scratch the surface.

Perhaps more importantly, a college recruiting coordinator would only need 15 minutes to explain to you how every single one of these changes seriously harmed Notre Dame football , how Notre Dame has spent decades ignoring or refusing to adapt to them all, and why as a result ND needs to take a long-term rebuilding approach instead of thinking that Urban Meyer or Brian Kelly can come in and win a title in three years (assuming that a top-profile candidate like that would even take the job, which is highly doubtful).

But let us summarize a few of them. Top Catholic football players are no longer heavily inclined towards Notre Dame because Catholicism is now mainstream (this also applies to younger Catholic coaches like Urban Meyer and Brian Kelly). Further, Notre Dame football has been pedestrian for so long that a generation of Catholic athletes has grown up paying more attention to Florida, USC, and Texas.

Regardless of background, far fewer top athletes live near where Notre Dame would get most of its players (the Northeast and upper Midwest), and getting kids from other regions is difficult because South Bend, Indiana is not a place virtually any of these kids would want to visit, let alone spend four years of their lives.

Thanks to the saturation coverage of college football, athletes are much more willing to go to lesser known programs that weren't even shown on TV 20 to 30 years ago (consider that ESPN's College GameDay will be at the TCU-Utah game, and realize that in another era Notre Dame-Pitt would have been one of only three to five games shown on national television this week even if neither team was particularly good!).

Finally, of the top athletes that actually do want to go to Notre Dame, the school will decline over half because of grades, and when one considers elite linemen, especially tackles, the percentage that can get into Notre Dame is smaller still.

Notre Dame supporters, of course, reject all of these as excuses. They tell themselves that the right coach would have the 30 to 40 of the Rivals, Scout, or ESPN top 100 that meet ND's academic requirements begging to spend four years in rural Indiana playing for a program that's won one bowl game—the Hawai'i Bowl at that—since they've been alive.

They use the recruiting success of Charlie Weis to justify that thinking, but look a little deeper: The clear majority of the top Weis recruits were ON OFFENSE—meaning that Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, Michael Floyd etc. came primarily to play for the offensive coordinator who won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, not because of anything having to do with Notre Dame's tradition.

Would big-time recruits follow another big name coach were ND to hire one? Not nearly to the extent that ND fans believe.

For instance, hiring Urban Meyer would mean maybe five to eight kids a year following him there because he is Urban Meyer—not nearly enough. Why any blue chip recruit would follow Brian Kelly to Notre Dame when the guy will have at most two Big East titles to his credit, ND fans would have to explain to me.

Ultimately, Notre Dame would still be left with their same limited and shallow recruiting pool. Whoever Notre Dame hires will have the challenge of identifying and developing the best players they possibly can from that pool and winning with those players so that they can expand it.

That is precisely what Notre Dame fans don't want to accept. They want to believe that Meyer would have the same success at ND as he is having at Florida because Notre Dame is still as good a program as Florida, if not better. They REALLY want to believe that Kelly would have more success at Notre Dame than he would at Cincinnati because Notre Dame is a better program than Cincinnati.

Notre Dame fans insist on believing that the recruiting pool is not shallow and limited because every high school football player either wants to come to ND, or would if they had the right coach to tell them why they SHOULD want to come to ND.

Which means that they insist on believing that Notre Dame means as much to 16-year-olds growing up in California, Texas, and Florida today as it did to the children of second and third generation Catholic immigrants in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, etc. in the days of Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, and Ara Parseghian.

In other words, a complete and total delusion.

It is not that modern football players do not care about tradition and history, because many of them do. It is that Notre Dame's tradition and history is irrelevant to their current experience.

It isn't just Notre Dame. Kids aren't going to Navy to be Roger Staubach, Syracuse to be Jim Brown (or Paul Robeson or Ernie Davis), or Grambling to be Jackie Harris or Doug Williams either.

So Notre Dame's next coach will have to be someone who can build a new program and—more importantly—a new tradition from the ground up. Notre Dame football needs to reinvent itself to succeed.

Other schools have done it; see Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. (Don't focus on the fact that Stoops won a title in two years, but rather that he is running the shotgun-spread at a school that defined power football for decades.) As a matter of fact, entire conferences have. Witness the drastic makeovers that the ACC, Big 12, and the SEC have pulled off in the last 10 to 15 years alone.

In order to do it, Notre Dame needs to stop trying to find a coach that will win them a national title in three years—which isn't going to happen—and start trying to find one that can build a program, a tradition, a brand over the next 10 to 15 years.

They need a fan and alumni base that will give this coach the time that he needs based on realistic short and intermediate goals, and not to keep running guys off because they can't accomplish your delusions.

The fact is that so long as these delusions remain, no sensible candidate is going to take the job. If a guy has a top job where he is contending for BCS bowls and national titles, he is going to stay there—and if a guy is an up-and-coming star, he is going to stay where he is until the next big job comes around.

No one sensible is going to take a job where he has to beat USC and Michigan every year while recruiting against Stanford and Northwestern.

That's right: Notre Dame fans would love to pretend that they are recruiting against USC and Michigan, but the truth is that most of the players at USC and Michigan would never clear ND admissions.

So as long as the delusions remain, Notre Dame will just keep hiring guys like Bob Davie, George O'Leary, Tyrone Willingham, and Charlie Weis...guys who are either desperate because they can't do any better (O'Leary), clueless because they don't know what they are getting into (Davie and Willingham), or both (Weis).

Anyone knowledgeable, sensible, and qualified knows that what Notre Dame's fanbase wants—to win with little local talent, a rural cold weather location, elevated entrance requirements, and no recent tradition, and to do it NOW—is impossible.

This is not some obscure opinion. It is the opinion of EVERYBODY who has considered the situation, including former Notre Dame coaches and players. So, the only way to attract someone qualified and capable is to give that person a job description that matches what a coach can actually accomplish there in real life, not in fantasy land.

Bottom line: If Notre Dame supporters don't recognize where their program is right now and hire a coach based on it, then they will be one step closer to no longer being a serious factor on the national football scene, and Notre Dame's storied history will be just that...history.

Vince Young: Reports Of His Career Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Gerald Ball — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:00:17 -0400

Most fans regard Vince Young as toast. A classic bust of a draft pick who may be cut in training camp and certainly will be released by next season. This is not surprising as most fans rely on the media for their information, and the media drumbeat about Young being an NFL failure has been going on since before he was even drafted.

Simply put: the media has had it out for Young since day one. That is why they magnify his failures, ignore his successes (posting a record of 18-11 with an absolutely dreadful team, and in the process saving his coach from getting fired) and practically ignore the shortcomings of players they prefer like Reggie Bush (3.7 yards per carry and 12 career rushing TDs despite playing for one of the best offenses in the NFL) and Matt Leinart (whose statistics are actually worse than Young's).

Also, note the clear disconnect between comments regarding Young's status and future between the media columnists and the Titans coaches and players.

Young's teammates, including those who have since left the team in free agency and no longer have a reason to carry water for the guy, uniformly state that he is a very good player with the potential to be great, who needed better players around him, and an offense better suited to his skills.

The Titans' coaches and organizations deny failing to surround Young with quality talent and an effective scheme (for obvious reasons) but even they attribute Young's problems to their having to play him before he was ready (to save their jobs) and that he is only now getting the opportunity to learn the NFL game as a backup that they planned to give him in the first two years of the league.

Yet the media drumbeat continued. When the Titans signed Chris Simms to be their third QB during last season, the media refused to portray it as a team that only had two QBs signing a third. After all, the Titans have usually carried three QBs in the past, and most NFL teams carry three.

Instead, the media stated: "The Titans are through with Young! Chris Simms is the QB of the future!" and kept the nonsense up for months. It ended when Simms left the Titans to sign with the Denver Broncos.

Why? Because Chris Simms—according to his own public comments—was the No. 3 QB in Tennessee, knew that he had no shot at beating out Young for No. 2, and was going to a situation where he could be the No. 2 QB.

The Titans were interested in Simms in case they couldn't retain Kerry Collins as a free agent. Never at any time was Simms reviewed as Vince Young's competition or replacement.

How did Simms know this? Because that was what the Titans told him. So, immediately after the Titans re-signed Collins, Simms went to Denver.

What was the media's response? "The Titans not keeping Simms was a FINANCIAL decision and no indication of their true feelings towards Young or his commitment to him."

Yeah, right.

Next, the media—primarily the local Nashville media—started talking up the possibility of the Titans' taking a QB in the draft. The draft came and went, and it didn't happen.

Once again, the Titans front office, coaches, and players reaffirmed their commitment to Young as the QB of the future. But the media stated: "Well, they didn't draft a QB because they were using the draft to get players to help them contend for the Super Bowl this year, but NEXT YEAR the QB of the future is coming in the draft!"

That is, until the Titans signed Patrick Ramsey.

The Titans publicly stated that it was to be the third QB. Patrick Ramsey acknowledged that, when the Titans signed him, it was to be the third QB.

But again the media blared: "Vince Young's roster spot is not secure! The Titans still have questions about Young! They signed a QB who knows the offensive coordinator's system! (Mike Heimerdinger coached Ramsey with the Broncos.) A huge training camp battle for backup QB is afoot, and if Young loses he will be cut!"

And the media kept that line...until training camp started.

Then they were forced to abandon it after Young—in a development that was a surprise only to them—began outplaying Patrick Ramsey immediately and has continued to do so thereafter.

At first, the columnists stated "Patrick Ramsey may catch up."

Excuse me, but how?

As they stated all summer, Ramsey already knew the offense and Young didn't? But now, the new line is "don't count Ramsey out yet! The REAL battle will be in the preseason games."

Excuse me, but the truth is training camp drills, which are passing drills only, represent Ramsey's only chance at outperforming Young.

During preseason games, Young will have the freedom to pass AND run, and Ramsey, as mediocre a passer as is Young, but certainly no runner, doesn't have a chance.

Again, everyone seems to know this but the media.

So then there comes the final hope: the Titans will be forced to release Young rather than pay his huge contract in 2010. Except the fact contracts are restructured to reduce salary cap figures more often than you'd think.

Vince Young and his agent have already publicly and repeatedly stated to whoever will listen that they are willing to redo his contract at any time.

Yet the Titans have not begun negotiations, not because they are intent on releasing Vince Young (which would make no sense, as redoing his contract would be much friendlier on the salary cap), but because their position is Young's contract is not a problem.

So what is going on?

Simple: The media has had it out for Young from day one. By "the media", I mean two entities: the national media and the local Nashville media, each with their distinct grudges.

First, the national media. They dislike Vince Young because he beat the USC Trojans for the national title in the Rose Bowl, and topped it off by leaving early for the draft and getting picked ahead of Leinart, resulting in his tumbling all the way to Arizona.

The media ignores the reason why Leinart fell so far was because he was out of shape and exhibited a prima donna/partyboy attitude during the predraft process, causing several teams to take him off their draft boards, and that Leinart's bad behavior continued in Arizona, forcing the Cardinals to give Kurt Warner the starting job despite their REALLY not wanting to.

Incidentally, Leinart has the same balloon payment next season as does Young, yet the next columnist who states it will force the Cardinals to release him—as is commonly alleged with Young—will be the first.

Not only does the media personally like and root for USC (as they did in the 1990s with FSU and do now with Florida and Oklahoma), but Vince Young's performance, singlehandedly outplaying Heisman Trophy winners Leinart and Bush (again chosen because of the incessant media cheerleading), made them look like fools.

The national media—led by ESPN—not only depicted USC as the best football team, which they may well have been, but as an unstoppable team for the ages, practically unbeatable in big games.

It was on this basis that the media justified such foolishness as giving USC a split title in 2003 (the only team in the BCS era to come anywhere close to doing so) and denying Auburn the same split title the next season.

Amazingly, the local media—especially the Los Angeles Times—and even the Trojans' coaching staff, tried to distance themselves from this talk, pointing out how strong the Longhorns were, that USC had its share of flaws, and that USC had been rather lucky to escape some games in the past. But it was to no avail, as ESPN continued with their "USC is the greatest team ever" advertising campaign.

When Vince Young exposed the nonsense for what it was, not only were they left with egg on their faces, but no longer could USC be presumed to be automatically deserving of a spot in the national title game. The media held the same position the 1990s with FSU, making sure that FSU leapfrogged teams that beat them and teams that had better records, only to see FSU lose more title games during the 90s than they won.

So thanks to Vince Young (and also to the intellectually dishonest and inconsistent framework that the media used to trash LSU in 2003 and Auburn in 2004), USC hasn't played for the national title or been allowed to share the title since (despite having very good arguments in 2007 and 2008) because Vince Young destroyed the "USC is unbeatable" argument.

ESPN has been leading the way in the Vince Young bashing. Colin Cowherd, for instance, declares that Vince Young is an inevitable bust who should never be given another chance while predicting that Matt Leinart will succeed down the line.

His reasoning? Vince Young's Wonderlic score.

Which, really, is about it. Of course, Cowherd ignores that plenty of QBs with low Wonderlic scores have succeeded in the NFL, or that Matt Leinart's high Wonderlic score hasn't resulted in his having better judgment or work ethic.

But Cowherd is no worse than Merrill Hoge, who not only predicted Young's failure from the very beginning, but continued to trash him EVEN WHEN HE WAS PLAYING WELL. For instance, when Young was turning in a Rookie of the Year/Pro Bowl caliber season in his first year, Hoge claimed that the Titans were winning in spite of him.

So...how does a team that had gone 7-25 the previous two years win in spite of ANYONE? The next season, when Young led the Titans to the playoffs, Hoge claimed that any other QB would have won the Super Bowl.

Sure, When the Titans finally fired offensive coordinator Norm Chow after three disastrous seasons, Hoge did not attribute that to Chow—who had no NFL experience whatsoever—not being an NFL caliber coordinator.

Instead, he blamed Vince Young. This despite Chow's own admission that he was "lost" on the NFL level, Chow's frequent statements that the Titans' WRs and RBs were so bad that he never had a fair chance.

Chow's offenses in Nashville were actually worse before they began playing Young, and not a single other NFL team even considered hiring Chow as a coordinator (because he was horrible) leading to his returning to the college ranks to work on RICK NEUHEISEL'S staff.

But that is the national media. The local media was even worse, and so was the fanbase. The truth is Young never had a chance, as neither the local media nor the fans wanted him to begin with.

There are basically two camps. The first, primarily the media, wanted Matt Leinart and made this fact clear in the pre-draft process. The second, primarily the fans, wanted Jay Cutler.

The Leinart camp's position is not so much affection for Leinart as is their belief that dual threat QBs are the worst possible QBs to have. On one hand they don't win Super Bowls, but on the other hand they take you to the playoffs every year, making them impossible to replace and result only in an otherwise championship caliber teams wasting their potential.

This school of thought, led by a particular Nashville sportswriter who wrote several columns to that effect, hoping to influence the Titans front office (to no avail) and now writes for ESPN, has nothing against Young's becoming a consistent playoff QB, but wants him to go do it someplace else as quickly as possible so that the Titans can replace him with a QB that will give them a shot at a Super Bowl.

This explains why this writer began soliciting quotes from anyone and everyone willing to criticize Young, even while the fellow was compiling a winning record, taking a wretched team to the playoffs, and in particular doing so in the 2007 season after the Titans lost their best RB and two best WRs to free agency (and refused to replace them in free agency or the draft) and was hobbling on bad hamstrings.

The local media was obsessed with trying to get Young to admit that he was hurt knowing full well that Young would refuse. Publicly admitting how hurt he was would cause defensive coordinators to blitz him even more than they already were, and it would give the local media license to accuse him of whining and making excuses.

Perhaps the biggest example of "unbiased objective reporting" was how the ringleader of this nonsense approached the WR situation.

The Titans' WRs have been horrible for years. When Young was the starting QB, this reporter stated that "the receivers are good enough IF YOUNG CAN GET THEM THE BALL." But immediately after Young was benched, this very same reporter began repeatedly writing "the passing game is never going to be productive unless we get better WRs."

The media would have trashed Young as betraying his teammates, dividing the locker room, and making excuses had he at any time asked for better WRs. When Kerry Collins demanded—and got—better WRs, it was evidence of his superior leadership.

Speaking of Collins versus Young, the media—national and local—would have you believe that Collins rescued the franchise from Young's ineffectiveness to lead them to the NFL's best record. Fine...if you like urban legends.

Here is the truth: Kerry Collins and Vince Young were indistinguishable as passers in 2007 and 2008. In 15 starts in 2007 (he missed one start due to his hamstrings) Young completed 62% of his passes for 2550 yards, 9 TDs and 17 INTs and a 71 rating.

Horrible, right? Well in 15 starts in 2008 (Young started the first game) a HEALTHY Collins completed 58% of his passes for 2676 yards, 12 TDs and 7 INTs and an 80 rating.

That's not all. Even on bad hamstrings, Young rushed for 400 yards and 3 TDs in 2007, meaning Young actually accounted for more yards and as many TDs as did Collins in 2008.

Second, COLLINS HAD BETTER PLAYERS AROUND HIM.

First, the Titans fixed their pass rush and secondary problems on defense.In 2007, the Titans drafted Michael Griffin, an excellent college safety, and tried to play him at CB, where he was horrible, as was LaMont Thompson, one of the starting safeties.

In 2008, the Titans acquired a CB from free agency, cut LaMont Thompson and moved Griffin to his spot. Further, Cortland Finnegan, a former small college player originally drafted by the Titans to be a reserve CB/special teamer but was thrust into the starting lineup out of the necessity created by the "Pacman" Jones fiasco, improved dramatically from his first year to his second.

Thus, the Titans' secondary went from being one of the worst in the NFL to being one of the best. And this does not even describe how the Titans had to use the draft and free agency to vastly improve their defensive line.

But that was not all. The Titans' terrible pass catchers received a lift from signing veteran free agents at WR and TE and seeing oft-injured deep threat WR Brandon Jones stay healthy the entire season. And most important: the Titans drafted RB Chris Johnson, who gave the offense someone capable of making long runs and sending LenDale White (who by is own admission was 35 pounds overweight) to the bench.

Now the local media did acknowledge that Collins wasn't making any plays—it was not as if they had a choice—but attributed the improved record (three whole games against an easier schedule!) to Collins' making fewer mistakes. It was completely ignored that thanks to the great defense and dominant running game Vince Young never had, Collins made fewer mistakes because he didn't have to make plays to win games.

Now everyone in the Titans' organization knows that this is the case. Including, incidentally, Kerry Collins, WHO REFUSED TO RESIGN WITH THE TITANS UNLESS HE WAS GUARANTEED THE STARTING JOB.

COLLINS DID NOT WANT TO COMPETE WITH A HEALTHY VINCE YOUNG WITH BETTER PLAYERS AROUND HIM! (Because of Jeff Fisher, who likes Collins and was behind the Titans' signing him from the scrap heap in the first place, the Titans' caved to Collins' request DESPITE NOT A SINGLE TEAM IN THE NFL OFFERING COLLINS A CONTRACT IN FREE AGENCY.)

But the local media doesn't report it, and the national media, already predisposed to wanting Young to fail and also (to be fair) being predisposed to defer to the "reporting" of the local media, simply passes on the poison.

Speaking of poison, that describes the relationship Vince Young has with the local fans. The rotten part: it isn't personal. Nashville is not a professional sports town, as the Titans only began playing there in 1999.

Instead, it is a college football town, a town infatuated with the local legend that is Jay Cutler and incensed that the Titans did not draft him. Now were it a city with a pro sports tradition, the fan base would be sophisticated enough to know that the local franchise is frequently going to go in a different direction from the local heroes (the Atlanta Falcons, for instance, rarely drafts players from the University of Georgia or Georgia Tech) and support the player that they have.

But the large, vocal and virulent Jay Cutler fan base wants Vince Young to fail simply because he isn't Jay Cutler. Some of it is hope that it will cause the Titans to pursue Cutler in a trade or as a free agent down the line (and you can guess what these folks were saying and doing during the Cutler drama with Denver this offseason!) but even if that never happens, the Cutler fans simply want to be able to say "I told you so!" for the next 30 years, and that can't happen if Young becomes a successful NFL QB.

So unlike the local media, who truthfully has nothing personal against Young (even if he does frequently rub them the wrong way with his immaturity and bad decisions) and sincerely does hope that he finds a better situation elsewhere, the local fans have so much personally invested in seeing Vince Young fail in football so they can say "I told you that you should have drafted Cutler!" that they are willing to root for the failure of their own team and the failure of a person who has never done anything to them or anyone else EXCEPT NOT BE JAY CUTLER!

The fact that Cutler himself professes to believe that Vince Young can be a good NFL QB, and that it would have been a lot better for his development had the Titans let Young spend at least his first year on the bench as the Broncos did for him means nothing to his Nashville "fans".

Now of course, the next QB that the Titans acquire won't have most of the Titans fanbase wanting him to fail because he won't be the guy drafted over the local hero. The local media knows this, and they also know how foolish and unfair it is.

But since Vince Young being hated by his own fan base is convenient to their own agenda—which is getting him out of town and replaced with a more traditional dropback QB—that they feed into it nonetheless.

Again, refer to the leading local sportswriter regurgitating Merrill Hoge's bashing to soften up Vince Young's local support even when he was playing well, therefore making absolutely sure that he would have practically no local support at all when Young began to inevitably struggle (as all inexperienced QBs do).

One of the Hoge's inanities repeated in the Nashville press: Vince Young is inaccurate and can't get the ball downfield because he has bad footwork, and if his footwork hasn't improved after two years in the NFL, THEN IT CAN'T GET ANY BETTER.

An even better quote by this sportswriter: (Indianapolis Colts GM) Bill Polian says that if a QB isn't any good by his third year, he won't be any good. Drew Brees in his third year: 17 TDs, 16 INTs, 77 rating. Drew Brees in his eigth year: 34 TDs, 17 INTs, 5000 yards, 96 rating. Brees is just one of a long list of QBs who were either ineffective (or on the bench because they were ineffective) early in their careers.

Who does that list include? Why both Tennessee's current QB Kerry Collins (52.5 percent completions for 2100 yards, 11 TDs and 21 INTs for a 56 rating) and Tennessee's QB prior to Young, the late Steve McNair (52 percent completions, 2665 yards, 14 TDs, 13 INTs, 70 rating).

Young is actually far ahead of where both Steve McNair and Kerry Collins (incidentally drafted in the same year) were. The local fanbase doesn't know it because Collins' early years were in Carolina and New Orleans, and McNair's early years were in Houston and Memphis.

The Titans' Super Bowl run, McNair's first playoff run, came after McNair had been struggling in Houston and Memphis for 4 seasons. Kerry Collins, meanwhile, didn't attain an 80 passer rating, 14 TD passes, or 57 percent completion percentage until his 6th season.

I wonder if Merrill Hoge regarded their footwork as improving during that time.

The local media knows this information, but reporting it would result in a fanbase that doesn't boo their starting QB at home games and even at offseason charity events. It's true...Tennessee Titans fans have actually booed Young during offseason charity events.

The hostility of the local fans has actually caused the local media to become convinced that driving Young into another situation is actually in his benefit, but in the process they ignore their role in creating and increasing the fanbase's hostility.

Thanks to the "I hate him because he beat USC" attitude of the national media, the "I don't hate him but I want him to go make some other franchise a perennial 2nd place finisher" attitude of the local media, and the "I hate him because he isn't Jay Cutler" attitude of the local fans, Vince Young would have had to have been an immediate success on the level of Peyton Manning (another guy that the locals REALLY wish were the Titans' QB...many of them actually RESENTED Tee Martin for winning the national title after Peyton Manning left, though that subsided with time) in order to silence the people who had so much invested in either seeing him fail or at least seeing him succeed or fail someplace else.

Right now, the going justification for the manifestly unfair treatment that the press and the fans have subjected him to was the "he quit on the team!" nonsense from the Jacksonville game last season.

While Young's behavior in that game was inexcusable, the fans and media are merely using that incident to justify the animus against him long before then, as if the booing and rooting for him to fail WHILE HE WAS LEADING A WINNING TEAM WHILE PLAYING HURT wasn't going on before then.

Incidentally, as many times as Young AND his teammates state that he refused to re-enter the Jacksonville game because he was trying to inform the coaching staff that he was INJURED, no one ever seems to want to report it.

It is regularly reported that Young was pulled out of the game due to suffering a knee injury during the game, but tried to come out of the game prior to that. It is never reported that Young was trying to come out of the game because his HAMSTRINGS, the same ones that he had played hurt on the prior season and had bothered him ever since, all through offseason drills and through training camp and preseason, were still bothering him.

So, when Young predicts that he is going to look great this season when he gets the chance because "this is the first time that my legs have been healthy in two years" it is either never reported, or people have no idea what he is talking about because it was never discussed (or proposed as the reason for his struggles) in the media in the past.

Well, the fans may not know (or care) and the media may not report it because it is not in their interests, but the Titans coaches and front office knows.

First, they know that Young saved the whole lot of them from being fired in 2006 and 2007 by producing an 18-11 record with a horrible team. Second, they know that Vince Young's development was set back by the terrible decision to hire Norm Chow, whose hiring Jeff Fisher publicly acknowledged was a mistake when he was forced (many believe by the owner) to fire him.

They know that the Titans' RBs and WRs have been terrible, because they are the ones who replaced them. After the Titans release draft bust Paul Williams, the only WRs from the 2007 season still in Nashville will Justin Gage, who by the way caught 55 passes from Vince Young for 750 yards and 2 TDs that year, and Chris Davis, who does nothing for the passing game will only make the team because the Titans have no one else to return kicks and punts.

Also, the starting RB from 2007, Chris Brown, is long gone. The No. 3 RB from 2007, former 2nd round draft pick bust Chris Henry, will be released during training camp along with Williams. No. 2 RB LenDale White was never in danger of being cut, but had he been willing to go from 260 lbs. to 229 lbs. before now—a contract year —he would have been the No. 1 RB long ago, and Vince Young would still be the starting QB.

That the Titans had this habit of using high draft picks on guys who did nothing in college like WR Paul Williams, WR Chris Davis, WR Brandon Jones, WR Tyrone Calico, and RB Chris Henry, as well as guys that other teams let slide down the draft over work ethic, injury, or character issues like RBs Chris Brown and LenDale White, WR Roydell Williams and TE Ben Troupe and going after aging, oft-injured and unproductive free agents like RB Travis Henry, WR David Givens, WR Eric Moulds, TE Alge Crumpler and WR Justin McCareins is precisely what gave Vince Young absolutely no chance of putting up good numbers early in his Titans career even if he had the ability.

Keep in mind: The "NFL players" listed above aren't late round pick and street free agent types acquired to fill out the bottom of the roster. These were guys who started plenty of games for the Titans—or were acquired hoping that they would start—while Vince Young was trying to move the offense.

See if you can count how many of these guys will even still be in the NFL this season—let alone in Nashville—and ask yourself if this was some Super Bowl offense that Young was holding back. Quite the contrary, it was an offense that produced more turnovers than points in the playoff game with Baltimore after Chris Johnson was injured.

Again, this is information that the Titans' coaches and front office already knows. So despite what the media says in their wishful thinking, there is actually a greater chance that Vince Young will be the starting QB in 2010 than there is that he will be released.

After all, what are the Titans actually supposed to accomplish this year anyway? Granted, they may have the No. 1 or 2 running game in the NFL thanks to Chris Johnson and a much slimmer LenDale White behind a great offensive line. But the passing game will consist of Kerry Collins throwing to Justin Gage, Nate Washington (Pittsburgh's No. 3 WR last season, and they did not even try to retain him in free agency) and Bo Scaife.

While this is marked improvement over last season and light years away from 2007, the greatest show on turf it is not, even if they get help from rookie TE Jared Cook (who has been very impressive so far) and rookie WR Kenny Britt (who hasn't). They are not going to outscore the much better offensive talent in New England, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis or San Diego in a playoff game, and may not even outscore the likes of Miami or Baltimore.

Last season the Titans may have only needed just enough on offense to let their defense carry them to the title. AFC offensive stars like Tom Brady, LaDanian Tomlinson, Peyton Manning, and both Pittsburgh Steelers tailbacks being injured and missing part or all of the season helped greatly.

This year, they are without Albert Haynesworth, who made their front four dominant enough to stop the run and rush the passer without blitzing. Without Haynesworth, their front four is good but not great.

Their first year defensive coordinator has already admitted that they are going to have to blitz in order to consistently pressure opposing QBs, which means that we are going to find out how good the Titans LBs and DBs really are, which is pretty good but not as good as the playmaking units on some of the other contenders.

Add it all up and the Titans are far more likely to go 10-6 with a first round playoff exit than win a Super Bowl. If that is the result, why go back to Kerry Collins in 2010? If Collins wasn't Troy Aikman in his prime, he won't be at 37, and the Titans will be wasting their time. Unless the Titans make a deep run in the playoffs that they don't have the talent to make, Jeff Fisher will have no choice but to open up the QB competition, one that Collins already knows that Young will win.

So rather than being on his way out of the league, Young will be healthy, with better players around him, and a complete knowledge of the offense in 2010 when he returns to Tennessee's starting lineup. Won't ESPN be happy!

South Carolina: Fire Steve Spurrier Over Urban Meyer to ND Comments!

Gerald Ball — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:34:44 -0400

South Carolina fans, it is time to get rid of Steve Spurrier after this season.

Not because Spurrier hasn't built South Carolina into an SEC contender, because that wasn't going to happen during arguably the strongest period in SEC history.

Not because Spurrier has lost two in a row (and nearly three out of four) to Vanderbilt, because Vanderbilt has long been something of a sleeping giant (well maybe not GIANT but a program with real potential) and Johnson was a proven winner at the FCS (then I-AA) level who has done a great job recruiting competitive talent to that program.

Not even because Spurrier had a losing record to Tommy Bowden at Clemson despite Spurrier generally having better athletes because Clemson's athletes were more motivated, better prepared and had a superior gameplan.

And not even because Spurrier has a 1-2 bowl record and missed postseason play altogether in 2007, and has a 15-17 SEC record.

Not even because despite Spurrier's reputation as a passing game coach, his passing offenses have generally been the team's weak link, undermining defenses and running games that have been good enough to win.

Why not fire Spurrier after all this? Simple. Because it is South Carolina, the No. 2 public university in a small southern state, and a university whose football tradition basically begins and ends with the fact that George Rogers won a Heisman there. (That and the Gator and Peach Bowl losses back when South Carolina competed in the Southern Conference and the ACC.)

The truth is that even at 28-22 Spurrier is one of the most successful coaches in South Carolina history, and at the age of 64 is still young enough to lead the school for ten more years, and leave a solid program with a winning tradition behind.

So what is the problem? Spurrier's comments to the effect that Urban Meyer should go to Notre Dame if Florida wins another national title next season, stating that Meyer would (or should) figure that he has done all that he can in that situation and should seek new challenges elsewhere.

Well, if a 44-year-old man is stupid enough to throw away the next 30 years of his career by leaving a situation where he can make more money (and in a state with a relatively low cost of living and no income tax!) and rack up titles to step into a no—win situation like Notre Dame, then that is Urban Meyer's business.

The reason is Spurrier's motivation for making the comment in the first place.

Despite what people immediately assumed, it is not because Spurrier wants his old job back. First, South Carolina should not be the least bit upset over the fact that Florida is, er, generally going to be seen as a better job anyway.

Second, Spurrier suffers no delusions about Florida, one of the top five and possibly top three jobs in the country right now, wanting to cast its lot with a 64 year old head coach who is not only running an outdated offensive system (the fun and gun was cutting edge in 1994!) but would have to totally dismantle the current system and rebuilt for it.

No, were Meyer to leave the Florida job would go to the next big thing in coaching, and failing that an established guy at another program, and Spurrier knows this.

As a matter of fact, when Florida hired Spurrier the first time, he was one of the hottest coaching prospects in the country, having won a conference title at DUKE, and Florida was so demoralized due to its frequent scandals and underachieving that practically no one else wanted the job.

Spurrier knows how far his profile has fallen—and Florida's have risen—since then.

So why is Spurrier trying to convince Urban Meyer of the merits of leaving Gainesville, or even trying to get Florida to question where Meyer's loyalties to the point where they will try to engineer the guy's exit at a time of their choosing—while Florida is riding high and can have their pick of successors—as opposed to Meyer's leaving them in the lurch?

Simple: because Spurrier doesn't want Meyer to completely overwhelm his Florida legacy.

Before Meyer, Spurrier was clearly No. 1 in the hearts and minds of Gators, the best coach in the program's history by far and perhaps the second best coach in the SEC to Bear Bryant, who did most of his damage in another era which really cannot fairly be compared to Spurrier's.

Right now, even with two titles, Spurrier is still No. 1 because it is generally acknowledged that Meyer built on Spurrier's foundation, what Spurrier accomplished in making Florida the No. 3 team in the country (behind FSU and Miami) in the 1990s and was still winning SEC titles and BCS games when he left for the NFL.

Even if Meyer wins another national title and heads off into the sunset, he will still be the guy that benefitted from A) Spurrier's foundation and B) the Tim Tebow era, in addition to not having to contend with Miami and FSU teams that were particularly good and sucking up all the best talent in Florida, and Spurrier's legacy is still mostly intact.

But if Meyer keeps on winning SEC and national titles after Tebow leaves—and Spurrier knows that Meyer can do just that—then Spurrier becomes just another guy who won some SEC titles and a national title at Florida.

He becomes the appetizer to Meyer's main course. As a matter of fact, some might even start asking why Spurrier didn't accomplish more during his time at Florida, what with all that talent in Florida, and an SEC that really was just Spurrier at Florida, the much less accomplished and capable Fulmer at Tennessee, and everybody else.

There were no Mark Richts at UGA, Les Miles at LSU, Nick Sabans at Alabama (and LSU), etc. Where Spurrier's SEC was one where Jim Donnan and Gerry DiNardo looked like real up and comers for a time, Meyer's success is coming in an SEC where Tommy Tuberville and Philip Fulmer were fired in the same year.

So what kept Spurrier from winning more than a solitary national title and never logging an undefeated season? (Terry Bowden at Auburn? Mike DuBose at Alabama?)

And what was going on with that 62-24—and could have been 80-17 had they not let up in the fourth quarter—wipeout against heavy underdog Nebraska, the SEC's only loss in a national title game since Vince Dooley and Herschel Walker went 1-2 in the early 1980s? And what on earth was going on with that 6-5 bowl record while at Florida?

So long as Meyer walks away while his time at Florida is linked to Spurrier laying the groundwork and Tim Tebow being "the best ever", no one asks those questions.

But if Meyer keeps winning SEC and competing for national titles in a conference that is going to get even tougher with Houston Nutt at Ole Miss, Bobby Petrino at Arkansas (for now) and even Kentucky and Vanderbilt no longer pushovers, then some folks might even start calling "the ole ball coach" overrated.

That is, inasmuch as the person who turned a scandal—plagued program that had never done a thing into a national power, completely changed the face of college football in the south by winning with the passing game and without cheating (and in the process possibly saving an SEC—on the verge of imploding due to corruption and incompetence—from itself), and won six conference and a national title can be considered overrated.

So driving Meyer off from Florida isn't about Spurrier getting a better job, something entirely forgivable. It is about Spurrier preserving his legacy, which isn't. A guy looking to get a better job is still someone who is looking to the future and has that competitive fire, someone who is on the cutting edge and willing to make the changes required to stay there.

Meanwhile, a guy trying to protect his legacy, his name in history, is thinking about the past, isn't doing much more than drawing a paycheck.

This is not to say that Spurrier is stealing money. Quite the contrary, Spurrier is putting more emphasis on and effort into things that he had little time for in his early years at Florida, things which he viewed as necessary evils (and more evil than necessary) like recruiting, defense, and running the football.

That is why he is still getting more out of Florida that most coaches would, and if his head were on the present and the future, he really could build a program there, a culture and expectation of winning, an actual tradition, that the next coach can build on to make South Carolina into a legitimate SEC contender.

Spurrier would be able to look back on his career and say that he saved the SEC from the brink of disaster, turned Florida from underachiever to powerhouse, took South Carolina from being a laughingstock to being a solid program, and won a conference title at DUKE. But looking back THEN is fine.

The problem is that Spurrier is looking back NOW, and that isn't what South Carolina needs.

Right now, South Carolina needs to protect what it has and move forward. What it has is four straight non - losing seasons from Spurrier on the heels of a Lou Holtz era that has its moments. If Spurrier had his head in the right place, he could build on that.

But since he doesn't, they are perfectly capable of marketing that job to someone who can...a young hungry assistant or small college coach looking to make a name for himself and willing to take the 10-15 years to get it done at the No. 2 state school in the Palmetto State.

Believe it or not, it is possible. There is talent in South Carolina, and still more talent in areas where South Carolina should be able to recruit: north Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and especially Virginia.

All that needs is to be done is get the best South Carolina players to stay home—and not head to Clemson, which hasn't done a thing in years either by the way, no conference titles since the 1980s—and get a player or three from the FSUs, UGAs, and from the ACC's mid-Atlantic schools, which right now is Virginia Tech and everybody else.

If you can get that done—and there is no reason why a very good recruiter can't, and as a matter of fact Spurrier has done a very good job recruiting at South Carolina—all it takes is a good coach to win eight to nine games a year.

And that coach could be Spurrier...IF he were willing to abandon the fun and gun.

But Spurrier isn't willing to abandon the fun and gun, because he is living in the past. His trying to run off Meyer before Meyer can touch his '90s legacy is proof. South Carolina needs to send Spurrier to the golf course after this season and get someone (Skip Holtz maybe?) who will take them to the future.

Why Do Teams Draft Offensive Linemen in the Top 10?

Gerald Ball — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:58:20 -0400

Practically every year, I see the frenzy over these "can't miss tackles"—even if more than a few of them like Robert Gallery, Leonard Davis, Mike Williams (the former Texas Longhorn offensive lineman), Levi Jones etc. do in fact miss, even if only by having to move to guard or just being pedestrian—with the media talking about how important these "cornerstones" are, and sure enough teams line up to draft them very high in the first round, with the huge signing bonuses that go with it.

This year in particular, some exceedingly awful teams at the top of the draft, especially Detroit, Saint Louis and Oakland, are rumored to be strongly considering taking a left tackle.

I don't see the logic behind it. I am going to make the most obvious statement of the year: In football, the team that scores the most points win. Offensive linemen do not put points on the board. QBs (however indirectly), RBs, WRs, and TEs do. Offensive linemen do not even stop other teams from putting points on the board.

Defensive players, especially DLs and LBs, do. So if you are drafting in the top 10, it is almost never because your line is horrible. It is because your group of QBs, RBs, and WRs stinks, because you are severely deficient in your defensive front seven, or both.

Now I didn't say that a bad offensive line can't keep a decent team out of the playoffs. Instead, I am only saying that if Joey Harrington, Mike Williams (the former USC WR) and Reggie Bush are your QB/WR/RB on offense and/or if you have the Denver Broncos' defensive front seven, adding a Pro Bowl left tackle MAY get you from two wins to four.

So if you have a top 10 pick, use it to get a ball handler or someone who tackles him. If you have good ball handlers and front seven players, you generally will not draft in the top 10, because you will score points and stop the other guy from doing so.

This is, of course, not to say that a team drafting in the top 10 shouldn't try to improve their offensive lines. But that is what the other rounds of the draft are for. You can get a very good OT in the top half of the second round, and a guard or center good enough to start as a rookie in the top half of the third round.

Maybe you won't find that "franchise tackle" later in the draft. (Then again, maybe you will, as recent Pro Bowl OTs Flozell Adams, Matt Light, Tarik Glenn, Chad Clifton, Marcus McNeill and Michael Roos were second rounders, and Jason Peters was undrafted.)

But if you have five good players on the offensive line, then you don't need that "franchise tackle." If you have five guys that can run block and pass protect, you don't need the next Anthony Munoz. Sure, he'd be nice to have, but you don't NEED him.

Examples: the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Indianapolis Colts, only the most successful NFL teams this decade. When was the last one to draft an offensive lineman in the top 10?

Granted, they are rarely in the top half of the draft, but when they are, they draft a Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James, Jerod Mayo, etc.

As a matter of fact, when the Steelers missed the playoffs this decade, they drafted Roethlisberger, WR Plaxico Burress, NT Casey Hampton, safety Troy Polamalu, and OLB Lawrence Timmons.

Yet the Steelers consistently have one of the better offensive lines in the NFL, including OTs that regularly make the Pro Bowl.

One of the reasons for this is that the Steelers are one of the rare NFL teams that prioritizes having five quality guys at each position. That makes everyone, including the LT, better. Meanwhile, most teams only care about having superior players at three of the OL spots, and place throw-ins elsewhere.

The truth is, however, that they don't have a choice. Because of the salary cap, teams can only invest so much in one position, and OL is the position that requires the most players (five).

So if you have a top-five pick at LT, his contract is going to preclude your spending very much at the other positions. The money that is going to be spent on Eugene Monroe (pictured above) or Jason Smith alone would buy the three above-average players needed for a very good interior offensive line.

This is why Donovan McNabb has got to be seething in Philadelphia. The Eagles gave up $100 million and a first-round pick for Shawn Andrews and Jason Peters to play RT and LT.

Fine, but who is going to run and catch the ball? You can give Hank Baskett all the time to get open in the world, and he still won't be a 1,000-yard 8 TD WR, and more to the point Brian Westbrook (even when he's healthy) still won't be able to move the pile and get tough yards.

The Eagles spent 10 years proving this with Tra Thomas and Jon Runyan blocking for the likes of Todd Pinkston and Freddie Mitchell, and it looks like they are about to spend 10 more years trying the same thing expecting different results.

The Eagles could have signed 1,000 yard rusher Dedric Ward PLUS Pro Bowl WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh AND gotten WR James Washington from the Steelers for good measure and paid them less money combined than Jason Peters' $60 million, AND kept their No. 1 pick!

So, they are going to spend yet another season watching teams with lesser OTs but much better RBs, WRs, and TEs run right pass them in the playoffs.

So the Lions shouldn't even consider drafting Jason Smith or Eugene Monroe. They draft No. 20 in the first round and No. 1 in the second round, OK?

If they need an OT that badly, package those and move up to get whoever drops of Jason Smith or Michael Oher, just like the Falcons moved up to get OT Sam Baker after taking Matt Ryan at No. 3 overall, or better yet stay where they are and take the two best OLs on the board at No. 20 and No. 33.

If the Lions should be debating on who to take No. 1, the debate should be between Stafford, Mark Sanchez, and Knowshon Moreno, not an OT.

The same goes for the Rams. Say they take Smith or Monroe. Fine. Still think they are ever going to get anywhere with Marc Bulger throwing the football? But hey, if he doesn't work out don't worry, KYLE BOLLER is backing him up!

In fairness Bulger and Boller could be Peyton Manning and it wouldn't matter, because they have Donnie Avery, Keenan Burton (?), and Derek Stanley (??) catching the ball, and actually thought they were helping themselves by trading for Atlanta Falcons draft bust Laurent Robinson (???).

Yes, the Rams OL is terrible, which gives Steven Jackson something else to complain about other than his contract, but like it matters. The Rams are far more likely to find an OL that can really help their team as a rookie in round two than they are a WR.

I haven't talked about defensive players, but that is really more of the same. Chiefs? Take either B.J. Raji at NT or OLB Aaron Curry. Keep the other team below 30 points a game, something that every Jay Cutler apologist will repeat ad nausem.

(Or if you don't think that Raji or Curry are 3-4 players, then pairing Michael Crabtree with Dwayne Bowe would help Matt Cassel a lot more than giving him a little more time to throw the ball.)

The best example (after the Eagles of course) is probably, is the Jets. In 2006, they received all these raves for drafting D'Brickashaw Ferguson at No. 4 and Nick Mangold later in the first. As a result, they probably have the best offensive line in the AFC East. Fine, how many playoff games have they been to? Exactly.

The Jets don't consistently rush the passer/stop the run, or score points. Excellent Baltimore NT Haloti Ngata would have helped the former, Super Bowl MVP WR Santonio Holmes or QB JAY CUTLER would have helped the latter.

The Jets thought they were being so clever by passing up the QBs in the first in order to take Kellen Clemens in the second. As the Jets wound up trading for Brett Favre only to see that blow up in their faces and are now considering trading up to get either Mark Sanchez or Josh Freeman, how'd that work out for them?

The best part: The Jets could have taken Cutler at No. 4 and still gotten Marcus McNeill, who, despite going in the second round (taken at No. 50, where the Jets took Clemens at No. 49!), is a better OT than Ferguson, whom they got at No. 4, anyway!

Of course, people will point out that Miami went from 1-15 to a playoff team last season after drafting Jake Long. Well, just because it works doesn't mean that it's a good idea!

Also, Miami's improvement had a lot more to do with a coaching change, acquiring a Pro Bowl caliber QB in Chad Pennington, and tailback Ronnie Brown's recovering from his gruesome knee injury (plus getting Ricky Williams back) than it did Long.

Further, the Cleveland Browns did not maintain the benefits of drafting Joe Thomas No. 3 overall in 2007. They won 10 games in 2008, sure, but went right back where they were in 2009 because of terrible QB play, RBs that are average at best, and a sieve defense.

So top 10 teams, stay away from offensive linemen, and get guys that help you win games.

Why the Denver Broncos Should Draft Knowshon Moreno

Gerald Ball — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:36:06 -0400

It may be far easier for Denver to recover from losing Jay Cutler than many claim.

First off, the folks who are stating "this will wreck the franchise!" need to get a grip on reality. Yes, Cutler was a franchise QB, but the truth is that franchise QBs are rare, which means that most teams don't have them. Yet many of them manage to do fine, including win Super Bowls (as did teams with Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer, Mark Rypien, Jeff Hostetler, Jim McMahon, Joe Theismann, etc.)

Meanwhile, having a franchise QB is no guarantee of winning a Super Bowl, as Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, Fran Tarkenton, Warren Moon, Jim Kelly, and some other guys on this "best QBs never to win a Super Bowl" list have proven.

So if Denver is terrible for the next 10 years, it isn't because they alienated Jay Cutler, especially when it is obvious that Cutler—who wanted to play for Chicago or Nashville to begin with and only liked being in Denver as long as he was playing for Mike Shanahan—was so easy to alienate. Instead, it will be because Denver failed to replace Cutler with a capable, effective QB.

And while franchise QBs are rare, capable effective QBs are not. It really is not that difficult to acquire in the draft, with a trade, or through free agency a guy that can win a lot of games if he is properly coached and surrounded with good talent.

Josh McDaniels, who had a lot of success with guys drafted in the sixth (Tom Brady) and seventh (Matt Cassel) rounds, knows this.

The reason why McDaniels was willing to trade Cutler for Cassel was because Cassel is a better fit for his offense than Cutler is, and McDaniels would play a lesser QB that fits his system than change his system to accommodate a better QB. Look, McDaniels won 11 games with Cassel last year. So McDaniels knows that he doesn't need another Cutler to win games. All he needs is another Cassel, and Matt Cassel's aren't that hard to find.

They may be hard to coach and surround with talent, mind you, but they aren't hard to find, and if you can't coach up your QBs and build great teams around them, you aren't going to win anything anyway. Take, well, Denver for instance. Shanahan was unable to get Cutler to reduce his turnovers and never gave Cutler a defense or a running game. Result: 17-20 record.

If Denver's next QB has a defense, a running game, and doesn't turn the ball over 20 times like Cutler did last season, he won't need to throw for 4,500 yards to get Denver into the playoffs. See Joe Flacco: only 2,950 yards, yet his team won two road playoff games and went to the AFC title game.

So that's why Denver should resist the knuckleheads that are now claiming that they should use their two No. 1 picks to trade up to get Mark Sanchez. (Similar to his SEC brethren Jay Cutler and Jason Campbell, Matt Stafford is a vertical game QB who doesn't fit McDaniel's offense.) That would be, in a word, idiotic, amounting to little more than trading a 25-year-old Pro Bowl QB for a guy who had one above average season in college.

Sure, Denver would still have next year's No. 1 pick, but come on: they have no idea where Chicago is going to draft next season, and they also have no clue what next year's draft is going to look like. All they know is that this year's draft is very strong in players that Denver badly needs (DT, LB and RB) and they have No. 12 and No. 18 in it.

They have to use those two picks to get better, and getting Sanchez doesn't make them better. Even if Sanchez is as good as Cutler is, the bottom line is that Denver is no better off.

So, the way that Denver gets better is to use their No. 1 picks in this year's draft to find starters at positions other than QB. That is the first step to making sure that they are a franchise capable of winning games when they do get a good QB: a franchise like the New York Giants, New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, and Pittsburgh Steelers.

(Notice that I left out the Indianapolis Colts, who would be absolutely awful with anything less than a future Hall of Famer at QB. The Colts are precisely what Denver does not want to be, and are no better than what Mike Shanahan would have built around Cutler.)

Now, the No. 12 pick in the draft has to go to a DL, preferably a DT but a DE is acceptable, that can be an impact player in their 3-4 defense. So then, what of the No. 18 pick? The safe, logical thing would be to draft a LB, a DB or another DL. Fine, but playing it safe would have also been kissing Cutler's feet (only to have Cutler reject the entreaties and ultimately be traded anyway).

No, Denver needs to go ahead and pull the trigger on what it hasn't had since Terrell Davis: a franchise tailback. Get a tailback that can rush for 1,500 yards to go with those great WRs and that very good offensive line, and Denver will have the best offense in the NFL waiting on whatever capable QB they acquire.

With that talent around him and with McDaniels calling the plays, this QB won't even need to be a franchise QB to put up franchise QB numbers. He would only have to be another Matt Cassel. And as stated earlier, it is not hard to find or mold a Matt Cassel.

The RB best suited for Denver is Knowshon Moreno. Other backs are bigger and faster, but Moreno is the only one that has played against top competition in a pro style offense, and would be able to do the blocking and receiving that the NFL game requires as a rookie.

Of course, if Moreno is gone by No. 18, Denver could go in another direction, including but not limited to trading down for still more picks, but they need to use one of them on a superior tailback prospect like Donald Brown, LeSean McCoy, or Div. I FCS sleeper Rashad Jennings.

As a matter of fact, if they improve the defense and get a top flight rusher, perhaps Kyle Orton will be good enough to get this team to the playoffs. And wouldn't that be the greatest of ironies!

So, Denver, get Knowshon Moreno or the next best RB option available, and let him run you away from the Cutler era. Best of all, the tailback that you draft will actually want to be in Denver whereas Cutler clearly never did.

Jason Campbell: As Good As Gone from the Washington Redskins

Gerald Ball — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:18:37 -0400

According to media reports, Jason Campbell is mighty confident.

He is working hard, going into his second year in Jim Zorn's system (the first time in his NFL career and only the second time since leaving high school that he will have had the same coordinator and system for two years in a row, as the Redskins have gone through as many coordinators and offenses while Campbell has been there as did Campbell's college program Auburn), and will almost certainly get more out of second-year targets Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, and Fred Davis than last year..

Also, the addition of Albert Haynesworth will get Campbell's offense better field position and more opportunities, and the thin mediocre offensive line has already been addressed in free agency and will be again in the draft.

Add that to a settled secondary situation due to the departure of Shawn Springs and the certainty that the Redskins will also draft a DE high in the draft, and Campbell has every reason to believe that he will not only improve on his 2008 season (3200 yards, 62 percent completions, 13 TDs, 84 rating) but that said improvement will lead to a playoff berth and a new contract.

But there is one slight problem with that: Campbell is almost certainly not going to get the chance. The issue is not that the Redskins tried to trade Jason Campbell for Jay Cutler.

Not even Campbell can blame the Redskins for trying to exchange him for a younger, better player.

The issue is not that Denver chose Kyle Orton over Jason Campbell, because Orton, a spread—horizontal game QB going back to his days as a spread QB at Purdue, is much more similar to Tom Brady and Matt Cassel than is Campbell, who is much more of a traditional play action—vertical game QB.

It is not even that the Redskins were unable to get a second round pick for Campbell, although that is a real cause for concern.

It is that Daniel Snyder and Vinny Cerrato obviously could care less about what effect their attempt to trade Campbell had on him. Snyder and Cerrato didn't even contact Campbell.

They simply spent an undetermined amount of time trying to trade Campbell to an unknown number of teams, and upon failing simply went home. Campbell was never notified before, during or after the process. Instead, everything that Campbell learned came through the media.

There is more context still here. 1) The Redskins have spent months refusing to give Campbell the contract extension that he badly wants.

Now I admit that Snyder's view that Campbell does not merit a contract extension based on what he shown so far is correct, but Campbell's counterpoint is a good one: Had the Redskins made the playoffs he most certainly would have gotten one, and that Campbell played well enough to win in four of the Redskins' eight losses.

Also, by changing coaches and coordinators practically every season and fielding a team with a bad offensive line and only one good WR, Snyder has not given Campbell what he needs to succeed.

So while not giving Campbell a new contract is proper and justified based on Campbell's pedestrian performance, Snyder should be sensitive to Campbell's thinking that he is getting a bad deal; that his lack of a new contract is as much Snyder's fault (for putting together a bad team) as it is Campbell's inability to overcome it.

Instead, Snyder is conspicuously and transparently disinterested in Campbell's perspective.

2) If the entire mess with Jay Cutler was—allegedly—started by the Broncos' attempt to trade Cutler, what of the fact that the Redskins did the same to Campbell?

Snyder and the Redskins would have apparently had an interest in showing deference to the precedents that Cutler appeared to set and the media generally seemed to respect in blaming Josh McDaniels and Pat Bowlen rather than Cutler.

Instead, Snyder and the Redskins had no problem with making it known to Campbell, the media, the fans etc. that they have little regard or respect for Campbell, and that they don't care who knows about this lack of regard or what effect it might have on Campbell's performance or on how the rest of the organization (e.g. the coaches and teammates) will respond to their lack of regard for Campbell.

For example, much has been made of Campbell's inability or unwillingness to assert himself as a leader, well now Snyder has so undermined Campbell that it is now impossible for Campbell do do so even were Campbell now so inclined to try to act as a leader.

Bottom line: It is not so much that Snyder has little regard for Jason Campbell as a player as it is that Snyder is not even trying to hide this lack of regard from anyone and everyone. So, Snyder has already moved on. Campbell is only the Redskins' starting QB until Snyder can replace him.

Snyder already tried to replace Campbell with Jay Cutler and failed, but he will certainly try again at the next opportunity. The only question is when this opportunity will be and if Snyder will have better luck next time.

Barring unforeseen developments, the next opportunity that Snyder will have to replace Campbell is the NFL draft, and it is almost certain that Snyder will do so at that time.

If Snyder was willing to give up two No. 1 picks to get Jay Cutler, he will certainly give up far less—say a first and second-round pick—to move up to get Mark Sanchez or Matt Stafford.

And that is assuming that Snyder would have to do so in the first place. Despite all the mock drafts that you have read, there is little to indicate that two QBs will be taken in the first 12 picks.

Kansas City, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Oakland, Jacksonville, Green Bay, San Francisco and Buffalo all have relatively young passers that they are committed to—or at least far more committed to than Washington is Campbell.

Saint Louis and Seattle are also not regarded as not wanting a QB, also neither franchise has a history of using first round draft picks to acquire QBs anyway. And if Denver wanted to take a QB at No. 12, why insist on getting a starting QB back in a trade as opposed to another pick or a defensive player?

So if Detroit passes on Matt Stafford at No. 1, then it virtually guarantees at least one of the top two QB being available for the Redskins at No. 13, and moreover both of them may well be. Again, even that is assuming that the Redskins don't try to trade up to make sure of it.

So, Apr. 25 will be Jason Campbell's last day as a Washington Redskin. Why, when the Redskins could simply allow Campbell to play out the last year of his contract while the rookie sits and learns? Simple: Campbell may well have a big year next season: 3600 yards, 20 TDs, and a playoff berth.

If that happens only to have Campbell walk and the Redskins have to start over with a new QB, it would be a fiasco. So, far better to dump Campbell for whatever they can get for him and play the rookie next season.

So in addition to saying and doing the right things—which can only help his reputation as a player, which quite frankly isn't that good around the NFL—Campbell really needs to have his agent start looking around for places for him to land.

Looking for teams that are willing to give him a shot to start in 2009 in case they don't get one of the three QBs that people actually want: Stafford, Sanchez, and Josh Freeman. Campbell does have a case: 27 years old, big arm, good mobility, and decent performance despite the less than ideal circumstances mentioned earlier.

A franchise guy that can carry a team and make the players around him better? No. A guy that gives you a better chance to win than what you have now, has a real chance to improve, and is low risk (only one year left on his deal and can be had for a middle round draft pick)?

Detroit (assuming they don't draft Stafford), Saint Louis, Seattle, the Jets (assuming they don't get Freeman), and Tampa Bay (ditto) really can't claim to have better things to do in 2009 than that.

But that is a case that Campbell has to make to those teams himself. He can't convince himself that he is Washington's starter this season based on his communications with Jim Zorn, who A) is not the guy making the decisions and B) is only capable of moving forward based on the players that he has now.

If Snyder hasn't told Zorn that Campbell isn't going to be back next season, then what else is Zorn supposed to do but support the guy that he things will be playing for him?

Campbell also can't rely on the reassuring stance that the media has taken towards his situation. That is because the D.C. and national sportswriters know that Campbell has had a tough situation, like Campbell personally, and really want him to succeed.

However, unfortunately for Campbell, the sportswriters don't run the Redskins. Snyder does.

How would Snyder respond to Campbell's trying to land another job? It doesn't really matter. Like there is anything that could happen that would make Snyder want another QB any more than he does already?

Also, at what point has Snyder, Cerrato, or anyone else from the Redskins come out and said that Jason Campbell will be their QB in 2009? You won't find it, because they haven't said it.

The public relations missives sent out by the Redskins on Friday simply acknowledged trying to acquire Cutler and having a productive meeting with Campbell and "moving forward."

No public statements indicating or implying any support for or commitment to Campbell were made; quite the contrary they were conspicuous by their absence. Campbell claims that in the face to face meeting with Snyder, Snyder told him that he was not a franchise QB, and that he wants Campbell to become one.

1) The main thing is that Snyder and Cerrato refuse to publicly address their level of support for their starting QB that is still under contract to them even after failing to trade him.

2) Just because Snyder wants Campbell to become a franchise QB—and who doesn't want Campbell to be a franchise QB?—means that he wants to wait any longer for Campbell to become WASHINGTON'S franchise QB, and he proved that by being willing to use the picks that could have been used to build a better team around Campbell and give them up for Cutler.

Now of course, Snyder is certainly willing to allow Campbell to play out his last season, and if he plays well, give him a contract extension. But that will only happen if the Redskins fail to land Stafford or Sanchez in the draft.

If Campbell doesn't realize this, someone had better tell him, starting with his agent. Not that Campbell should try to force a trade, but rather he had better do his best to make sure that there is a place for him to go start when the Redskins draft Mark Sanchez.

And as for the Redskins fans, especially the Campbell bashers—who are not 100 percent without justification—get ready for Mark Sanchez to be your new QB.

There's Just No Contest in the Pac-10 vs. SEC Debate

Gerald Ball — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:07:43 -0500

Why is there even a debate between the Pac-10 and the SEC as to which conference is better?

Seriously, there really shouldn't be any.

Why?

Because the two conferences aren't competing against each other. They don't regularly play each other in the regular season.

They don't have bowl tie-ins with each other.

They don't recruit the same athletes, or even the same type and profile of athletes.

They don't have the same style of play.

They also have different emphases of where college (and high school) football fit into their educational framework and overall culture.

These things—and many others—are the results of athletic conferences comprising universities that are 3,000 MILES APART.

So, this talk about how the conferences should schedule more non-conference games with each other and seek more bowl tie-ins: pardon me, but why? What would it gain either conference?

Respect?

The SEC doesn't need or want respect from anybody.

Instead, it invites anyone and everyone to hate the SEC as much as they choose to do so long as such people take notice of the national titles, bowl wins, draft picks, and recruiting classes that the SEC racks up, even during its "down years."

Hate but don't denigrate because, quite frankly, you can't while remaining intellectually honest. (Yes, the same applies to SEC fans who claim that USC is anything other than an outstanding programs that produces great teams year after year.)

As for the Pac-10, it has an 11-7 record against the SEC in recent years already, and what has it gotten them? Cal beat Tennessee in 2007 and finished 7-6. UCLA beat Tennessee in 2008 and finished 4-8. USC beat Auburn in 2002, Arkansas in 2006, and finished with two losses both years.

So, beating SEC teams will not help the Pac-10 do what it really needs, which is to win enough regular season games to get national title shots and major bowl bids under the current system.

As for money and exposure, the SEC doesn't need it. They are already No. 1 in both. Playing and even beating the SEC is not going to get the Pac-10 exposure and money. That will only come from (and I repeat) winning as often as the SEC teams do.

In order to do that, the Pac-10 will have to recruit as well as the SEC does. That means changing the philosophy and approach that Pac-10 schools have towards college football.

But why would they do such a thing?

College football is nowhere as meaningful on the west coast as it is in the southeast.

Why haven't the Pac-10 lured in Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Nick Saban, Jim Tressel, Rich Rodriguez, Les Miles, or Urban Meyer with these $4 million a year salaries?

The Pac-10 wouldn't accomplish anything even if they were to win BCS bowls right and left as these coaches have done prior.

Most people out west still wouldn't care because the university culture out there is not college football driven, it is image driven.

Sending the image that you care more about BCS at-large bids than Nobel laureates is part of the reason why Silicon Valley is in California and not Mississippi or Alabama.

This is not to say that the Pac-10 should not do their best to find the next batch of great college coaches. It is just that when UCLA, Arizona State, Arizona, and Washington give guys like Rick Neuheisel, Dennis Erickson, Tyrone Willingham, and John Mackovic THEIR THIRD SHOTS.

The Pac-10 hire guys like Karl Dorrell and give them FOREVER to inevitably fail, it really is hard to claim that Pac-10 programs are really trying. (It is equally hard when the top assistants at Pac-10 schools other than USC are not known for producing very strong recruiting classes OR defenses.)

So the answer for the Pac-10 is not to try as hard at being good at college football as the SEC, because that is not consistent with the types of institutions that are in the Pac-10 (Stanford, Cal, UCLA ... get the picture?) or western culture.

Instead, the Pac-10 needs to find a way to build programs that win 10-12 games a year without emulating the southern university culture that has little else to offer, but its football.

If USC did it during the McKay, Robinson, and now Carroll tenures and especially Washington did it under Don James, it can be done consistently.

All it takes is hiring good head coaches with great staffs.

USC has that.

Oregon as well though to a lesser degree, I am willing to say the same about Cal and Oregon State for now.

The successful Pac-10 teams need to get from the top 25 and into the top 10.

As for the rest, well they didn't get into bowl games did they?

As great as the SEC has been in football, it can get better too.

Simply put: has anyone noticed SEC graduation rates lately?

Or off the field problems at many SEC schools?

That has to change and SEC fans should demand it, instead of using them as an excuse to chase off coaches that you don't like.

The SEC needs coaches that can win, while recruiting players that actually care about being productive college students.

Athletic-scholars need to be willing and able to make the good decisions and sacrifices that come with receiving a free education at a major university.

Before you say that such an endeavor is impossible, well you are not facing up to the biggest issue in SEC country. An alarming percentage of our top athletes don't academically qualify, and a high percentage of the rest flunk out in two years or less.

From 10 percent to almost 40 percent of every SEC recruiting class consists of guys that the coaching staff recruiting them knows will have at least a 50/50 chance of flunking out.

SEC fans need to put their voice and organizing muscle behind school reforms to keep so many guys that could help the SEC win even more titles (or failing that have a winning record against the Pac-10 and ACC) from becoming academic casualties.

There needs to be a massive charter school push in SEC country.

There also needs to be "Tim Tebow laws" that would allow charter, private school, and home-schooled students to play high school sports at public schools (oh yes, and you know, use their libraries and computer labs and other boring stuff like that).

More dual enrollments and advanced courses for the stronger students, more vocational—oriented programs for everyone else.

And the urban and rural high schools that are often the worst achievers—which means have the highest proportion of people who have the ability to be SEC athletes but not the grades—need magnet and IB (international baccalaureate) programs.

Of course, these measures will not address the root cause of the problems, which liberals will say is poverty, conservatives will say is disintegrating families, and those without a dog in the ideological hunt will blame on a variety of other factors.

But the result will still be more eligible athletes for SEC football and other sports (which means needing to rely on recruiting those with poor grades and criminal tendencies even less) and projecting the image that SEC fans care more about things than football.

What is the downside?

So SEC fan, the next time some national or west coast media knucklehead gleefully proclaims the SEC to be having "a down year" or rips SEC's non-conference scheduling, instead of flooding his email inbox with a rant that will accomplish very little, send a letter demanding more charter schools.

Religion based organizations should raise the money to support their own schools with tithes and offerings so that the government will not be able to use the strings that comes with the tax money to regulate churches and schools.

Now, if we would raise scholarship money ourselves to get some of our better athletes away from these failing schools and into these private school football factories like Evangel Prep, then THAT is a good idea!

So Pac-10 and SEC fans, it is time to bury the hatchet (and not in each other's backs!).

Pac-10 fans need to put pressure on their university presidents and ADs to hire better head coaches and better assistants.

SEC fans need to put pressure on their state and local governments to do something about these worst in the nation dropout rates and SAT/ACT scores that deprive us of so many great SEC athletes (plus not a few doctors, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, you know boring stuff like that).

So how about it, SEC and Pac-10 fans? Let's stop fighting each other and start fighting our own battles.

And another thing Pac-10 fans, you might want to do something to stop those west coast, anti-football liberals from dropping football at all these programs.

You all know that it is going on out there, and I read that San Jose State and San Diego State are their next targets.

Turner Gill Opening Doors for Black Coaches

Gerald Ball — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:07:14 -0500

Right now, we are seeing the ridiculous media generated story line that Turner Gill is a victim of discrimination by Auburn University. Total nonsense.

The truth is that of the three high profile jobs that Turner Gill interviewed for, Auburn University was A) the worst fit between Gill and institution and B) the only one where he actually had a shot at getting the job. Gill was a much better fit for both Nebraska and Syracuse, and Gill had no shot at either job.

Instead, let us look at something that is both true AND positive. Despite what you have heard, the pace of black hiring of coaches at the I-A level has picked up this year. The rub: it is at the mid-major level. Because there have been no black hires at the major level, we presume that no progress is being made. But the truth is that three blacks getting hired at the I-A level in a single year is almost unprecedented and also a very good thing.

What about the lack of progress at the top level, at the BCS conferences or even the traditionally stronger mid-majors? My answer: what about it? As Jason Whitlock correctly points out, black coaches have not accomplished squat at the big time programs.

Best record: Karl Dorrell. Biggest accomplishment: Tyrone Willingham winning the Pac-10 with an 8-4 record. Biggest victory: Bobby Williams and Michigan State over Florida and Steve Spurrier in the Citrus Bowl. Anybody want to hire Dorrell, Willingham, or Williams as their head coaches right now? Didn't think so.

Now this lack of success is not the fault of the black coaches that have not gotten the opportunity. It IS, however, the fault of the black coaches that were. And do not peddle the nonsense about "it should be about qualifications not race" because one of the best arguments for Turner Gill and Auburn was the belief that Gill's race would help him recruit against Nick Saban and the rest of the SEC.

So, race matters when it is a positive, but when it is a negative we should be colorblind? That is inconsistent.

But if this is the case, then why are blacks getting jobs at the mid-major level? I am certain that it is in no small part because of Turner Gill and Buffalo. Gill showed last year that winning was possible at Buffalo by going 5-7 at a program that had been 10-69 since moving to I-A, and this year won the MAC. So the result of Gill's success at the mid-major level? Three blacks getting hired at that level this year.

Now some people are claiming that Gill's accomplishments at Buffalo are being overstated. Well, talk to the people who are in the best position to know: Buffalo's MAC competition. Those folks know how bad Buffalo used to be. The result: two of the three black head coaching hires were in the MAC.

As a matter of fact, see this quote regarding Mike Haywood gaining the Miami of Ohio job: I think one thing that helped Mike land the job was Turner Gill. So I am not alone in this thinking. MAC people looked at what Gill did in winning the conference at Buffalo, and recognized that he could have accomplished the same feat at their school. It really was just that simple.

And if Kevin Sumlin and Mike Locksley have similar success at Houston and New Mexico, then it will lead to more black hires in Conference USA and the Mountain West. On the contrary, if they fail, then it will have the same depressing effect on black hires that the failure of Bobby Williams did for the Big 10 and the failures of Bob Simmons and John Blake had for the Big 12.

So, not that he needs any added pressure after going 5-7 and 7-5 his first two seasons and being clearly outcoached and/or totally failing to motivate his team at times (ending both his first seasons with not only losing streaks but streaks of blowout losses was particularly bad) there really is a lot riding on Randy Shannon succeeding in Miami.

If he succeeds, there will almost certainly be a black coach among the next wave of ACC coaching hires. But if he doesn't, well it will be difficult to make the case that there should be, as Shannon was by far the most promising black head coaching prospect in that conference.

But back to Turner Gill, he is not alone with regard to his success opening up doors. Consider Charlie Strong. Ten years ago, Strong was the first and only black coordinator in the SEC.

Now, half of the SEC schools either have or have had black coordinators. That number would be higher had Rodney Garner accepted the LSU defensive coordinator job last year, and may yet rise depending on who Auburn and LSU chooses to fill their positions.

So, it is past time to stop viewing Turner Gill as a racial victim. Instead, Gill is a leader, a trailblazer. Just as he opened up opportunities for black quarterbacks at big time programs a generation ago, Gill is opening up opportunities for black coordinators (as he is Buffalo's offensive coordinator in addition to head coach) and head coaches. That is a thing regarding Gill's accomplishments to be glad about rather than sad or angry about.

Was Auburn Racist Over Turner Gill? NO! Now SYRACUSE, on the Other Hand...

Gerald Ball — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:02:20 -0500

Auburn did not refuse to hire Turner Gill because he was black or because he had a white wife. Quite the contrary: Auburn University badly wanted to hire the man. He was high on their list, one of the first persons that they interviewed, and they brought him in hoping to introduce him as their coach that very same day.

So what happened? Gill and Auburn had serious disagreements over how the program was to be run. In things ranging from hiring of assistants to general philosophy, Auburn wanted to run the program the Auburn way and Gill wanted to run it his way. Once Auburn discovered this, there was no point in continuing discussions.

That is why Gill's interview is being described as "outstanding and brief." Outstanding because they were very impressed with Gill—brief because they knew that he was not their guy.

Do not claim that this is just some line contrived by Auburn people to justify their decision. Why? Because it was the same reason why Mike Leach of Texas Tech and Gary Patterson of TCU, two men incontrovertibly more qualified than Gill, were never considered.

Also, do not claim that Auburn wanted to give Gill less freedom than they would have given a comparable white head coach, or that they wanted a frontman of any race for the boosters and interests behind the scene, such as the notorious Bobby Lowder.

First off, the media tagged Lowder as a bad guy because of his role in running off Terry Bowden. Before Terry Bowden, no one outside of Auburn circles knew or cared about the guy. But after Bowden's exit, he and the faction that opposed him was labeled with every caricature of the typical Southern football factory.

Why? Because the media loved Terry Bowden. He represents everything that the media likes about and wants in a football coach (let's just say that he was beloved for precisely the same reason as was Rick Neuheisel), and the media presumed that the Lowder faction wanted Bowden out because of a resistance to change.

The truth is that Bowden was only hired because of his last name and was soon exposed as a horrible football coach for reasons that will not be recounted.

But instead of pointing out that the Lowder faction was vindicated after not one single other college program would touch Terry Bowden with a 10-foot pole (yes, Bowden has applied for other jobs, lots of them, including some rather undesirable ones, and the fellow is now working for Yahoo), the media still blame that faction for everything bad (or should I say everything that the media disagrees with) ever since.

This includes the 2003 fiasco with Tommy Tuberville. Why was it a fiasco? Because it didn't succeed.

Yes, Tuberville was a winning coach. So was Ron Zook when Florida fired him. So was Jim Donnan when UGA fired him. So was Bob Toledo when UCLA fired him. So was Frank Solich when Nebraska fired him. So was John Cooper when Ohio State fired him. So were Paul Hackett and John Robinson when USC fired them.

So what is so unusual about firing a winning but underachieving or otherwise flawed coach and trying to get a better one? Nothing at all. But the media took the occasion to attack the Lowder faction because they were still mad at them for forcing out Terry Bowden.

See, during the early years of Tommy Tuberville's era at Auburn, the other SEC powers were down for one reason or another, and Tuberville took advantage of it to recruit the most talented team in the SEC. What did Tuberville do with that great advantage? Go 9-4 in 2002 and 8-5 in 2003, including back-to-back humiliating losses to obviously less talented but better coached intrastate rivals UGA.

The culprit: Tuberville's meddling with and complete mishandling of the offense. By 2003, Tuberville had gone through his third offensive coordinator in four years, wasting the future NFL QB and three future NFL RBs in his backfield (not to mention a great offensive line and very good WRs).

But the national media didn't care about that. To them, it was just the same fellow who ran off their beloved progressive Terry Bowden because they wanted to stay in the stone ages running off Tuberville.

Tuberville's going 0-4 against UGA and USC? Well, to them that was a good thing. After all, they like Richt and UGA and especially Pete Carroll and USC anyway. So why fire him over that? It isn't like Auburn is ever going to beat those teams anyway. They're just Auburn! So be glad that Tuberville is beating Alabama...while they aren't any good.

But lo and behold, again the Lowder faction was proven correct. Bobby Petrino proved to be a fantastic coach at Louisville. Tuberville, meanwhile, has since burned through two more offensive coordinators, switched offensive philosophies three times, and was trying to hire yet a third offensive coordinator when he was forced out.

Also, the window that Tuberville should have taken advantage of to make Auburn into one of the top two or three programs in the SEC is closed. LSU, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia have great recruiters and proven coaches. As a matter of fact, so do Ole Miss (which by the way is a sleeping giant; there is a lot of talent in that state which usually goes elsewhere), South Carolina, and oh yeah, Arkansas hired someone named Petrino.

If Tuberville only won one SEC title when the SEC wasn't that strong, he had no shot at competing in the strongest collection of SEC coaches in history. They had to upgrade.

But the media depicts this as another out of control situation at Auburn. Never mind that Auburn has continued to drop off from that 2004 team as the talent left, as the Lowder faction knew would happen. Never mind that Tuberville has continued to mess up the offensive side of the ball, as the Lowder faction knew.

And never mind that Petrino has since proven himself to be an incontrovertibly better coach, as the Lowder faction knew. Petrino finished with the same record, 5-7, in his first year at an Arkansas program with much less talent (Petrino didn't even have a viable QB).

Where Arkansas beat LSU, Auburn had everyone thinking that they were a threat to get back to the title game. Oh yeah, Petrino's Arkansas also beat Auburn. Not that anyone but the Lowder faction seems to have noticed.

So now, the group that the national media has hated because they forced out Terry Bowden (never mind that all the Bowden legacies are now out of college football) is blaming Auburn over this Gill hire. Some are calling them racist.

Others are calling them incompetent, such as Stewart Mandel and Matt Hayes. If it were up to Hayes in particular, Neuheisel would still be at Colorado, Bowden would still be at Auburn, and Turner Gill would have taken a lateral move to New Mexico.

That's right: Matt Hayes actually suggested in a recent column that Turner Gill should resign from Buffalo, where he could have three losing seasons in a row and still keep his job, in favor of New Mexico, who just forced out Rocky Long, who had that program bowl eligible every year from 2002-2007!

So, there is this nonsense that Chizik was hired over Gill. Nonsense. Chizik was only hired after Auburn made the correct decision not to hire Gill. Why was it correct? Because you do not give a guy who played and coached most of his career in the Big 12 and has had one winning season out of three at the mid-major level carte blanche at an SEC program. You only get that after you have proven yourself in the SEC.

This is not exclusive to Gill. When Urban Meyer came to Florida, he had to hire or retain Charlie Strong and a bunch of other assistants that have strong SEC or Florida ties. When Nick Saban came to LSU, he left his entire staff at Michigan State. And so on.

It is also not exclusive to the SEC. Let's say you are applying to be head coach in the Pac-10. Go tell them that you want to win by running the football and playing defense like they do in the SEC and Big Ten, or they did in the Big 12 before Stoops.

Oh yes, and tell them that you will be bringing in Jim Bob and Hank Joe as your coordinators, and that to bring your team closer together, you all would go hang out at the annual rattlesnake roundup and partake in some good old fashioned mud-wrasslin' and pig castratin'!

The president and AD of that Pac-10 program will pat you on the back and say, "Sir, we know that you are going to be an excellent head coach one day. YOU JUST WON'T BE ONE HERE!" And that will be the end of it. That's precisely what happened with Turner Gill...a routine football decision where it was a bad fit between a qualified candidate and a desirable job.

(Yes, Turner Gill did want the Auburn job, and if it were the madhouse that everyone claims, he would have never even bothered, just as he told Washington State he wasn't interested last year and Iowa State the same this year...not saying that WSU and ISU are madhouses, but rather that Gill is very prudent and selective at where he chooses to interview.)

Now Gill has been told "bad fit" before. But this was one instance where it was true. With no ties to the institution, the region, or the conference, Gill would have had to give concessions to his potential employer before they would have any reason to be confident that he would succeed, and Gill refused to make those concessions.

So Auburn found someone who A) was a very good coordinator, B) had ties to the school, C) had ties to the area, and D) was willing to make those concessions and hired him.

We know that D) is true because the first thing that Chizik said after he was hired was, "We are going to get back to Auburn football." Gill wanted to get Auburn to Gill football, and while Gill football is good for Buffalo and may have worked for Nebraska, there was no evidence that it would work at Auburn.

You can fault Auburn for making a safe choice versus a risky choice. But why should Auburn have been the one to make all the concessions? Gill was the one looking for the job. Why couldn't Gill have been the one to recognize that he was the guy with meager credentials and no connections or ties being offered a chance to coach a top program in the SEC and made the very reasonable and routine concessions required to get the job?

Again, Nick Saban did the same to get the LSU job. Now while beating Ball State in the MAC championship game was great for Gill, it WAS NOT the same as going 9-2 at Michigan State with Plaxico Burress and little else, as Saban had just done.

This not to say that Gill should be faulted either. Coaching is a high stress job, and coaches highly value their own comfort level. A coach is only going to succeed if he is comfortable, and it may be that at this time in his head coaching career (which again is very young) Gill is only comfortable surrounded by his people and doing things his way.

Besides, go tell Mike Leach, "You're a fantastic coach and we'd love to have you, but you'll have to run your program the way Jim Tressel does his. After all, Tressel has won several BCS bowl games and a national title." Reply: Thanks but no thanks.

So now you know why Gill was not hired. Now you know why Gill insists that he was not mistreated. And now you know why the media has chosen to trash Auburn instead of other better candidates for racist coaching hires.

Which better candidates? How about COLORADO in the 1990s? Bob Simmons had been a part of building that program for many years and had helped build West Virginia in years prior. Rick Neuheisel, on the other hand, was in his early 30s, had only been in coaching a few seasons, and had only been at Colorado one year, his first with coordinator-type responsibilities (where Simmons was defensive coordinator and assistant head coach). Even better: Bill McCartney endorsed Simmons for the job!

Well, the job went to Neuheisel, and the guys who made the decision begged Simmons to stay on and be the head recruiter and administrator—to actually run the program behind the scenes—so Neuheisel could focus on his offensive scheme and gameday coaching (the only thing that he knew a thing about) while receiving the credit and pay of a head coach.

Of course, Simmons declined and ultimately took a job at Oklahoma State, which at the time was suffering from massive sanctions, scholarship reductions, outdated facilities, and had no tradition...one of the worst jobs in the country.

Jesse Jackson even attempted to make it an issue and urged Simmons to file a racial discrimination lawsuit, which Simmons would have certainly won. (Simmons declined.)

The same media rags that are now trashing Auburn, including ESPN? They rushed to the defense of Colorado. They criticized Jackson for getting involved, poking his nose where it didn't belong. Sure, on paper Neuheisel was less qualified, but couldn't they see that there was something different about Neuheisel? Something special?

USA Today actually ran a major story about Neuheisel, calling him "the next Bobby Bowden." They stated, "Sure, this lack of black coaches issue is a legitimate one, one that we have talked about, but not at this time."

Why? Because the media supported the hire. Period.

Want another one? Well, there is SYRACUSE THIS YEAR. The issues and concerns that Auburn had, legitimate ones, aren't a factor. Where Gill would have followed a fellow at Auburn who went 85-40, Syracuse hasn't had a winning season since 2001. Where Auburn is a football factory, Syracuse is a basketball school.

Where Gill would have had to compete with some of the nation's best coaches at very strong programs in the SEC, the last three Big East champions are Cincinnati (ranked behind Utah, Boise, and two loss mid-major TCU in the BCS!), West Virginia, and Louisville (with the head coaches of the latter two having left for better pastures, and the coach of the former soon to do so as well).

Gill runs the same West Coast pro style offense that Syracuse AD Daryl Gross wants to run. Gill has also proven that he can rebuild a program and win in New York state, with recruits like 6'3", 230-lb. Houston prep QB Darius Willis, who was recruited by Texas A&M and Oklahoma State.

Syracuse first tried to get in on Lane Kiffin but was beaten to the punch by Tennessee. (Again, no media outrage over their failure to so much as interview Gill or Charlie Strong, because the media likes the Kiffin hire just as much as they liked the Neuheisel one. And the difference between Kiffin and Chizik is what precisely?) They then tried to hire Brian Kelly but were rebuffed. Then they begged and pleaded for at least a week for Skip Holtz to take the job before finally giving up.

Now Syracuse had already interviewed Gill during all this time, but they bring him in again. Why? The first interview was fake, the sort of things that colleges do for show while they are going after the guys that they really want behind the scenes. With those three candidates (plus any number of others) having told Syracuse no, Gill was being brought back for an actual interview for the purposes of finally considering for the job.

That is, well, sort of. Syracuse made it known to Gill that he would only be hired if their second batch of candidates didn't work out. Now it is curious that another highly regarded black prospect who was linked to the Syracuse job, Mike Locksley, saw that he had no shot and took the New Mexico job.

(New Mexico, following the thinking of Houston last year, is following a trend of some Western mid-majors in thinking that maybe a black head coach will deliver the black Texas and California talent that will allow them to compete with Utah, BYU, TCU, and Boise.)

That Syracuse never had any real interest in Gill was not exactly a big secret. Long before the Marrone hire, it had been filtering out onto some websites and blogs.

As Marrone, a longtime NFL assistant and currently an offensive coordinator with no play calling responsibility on a team that will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row, and who has been away from college football since 1994 with no college or NFL head coaching experience, is an even worse candidate than Gene Chizik, why the lack of invective at Syracuse that has been aimed at Auburn?

No one has called the Syracuse people racist. No one has even called the Syracuse people incompetent, although their steadily destroying the program that Dick McPherson built, the utterly nonsensical Greg Robinson hire (Daryl Gross insisted that he was the next Pete Carroll), and their badly botched hiring process this season would tend to indicate it.

And why is that? Simple. Auburn is a Southern conservative (by higher education standards) agricultural school. Syracuse is a Northern liberal elite university. It is easy to depict Auburn as racist at worst or a bunch of ignorant rednecks at best. It is hard for these people, the media elites at ESPN and elsewhere, to either conceive that the sort of institution that they attended and sent their kids to is racist or incompetent.

So Auburn, the school that made the right decision for Gill and for itself in turning him down, gets skewered. Syracuse, the school that made the wrong decision, gets off scot-free just like Colorado did.

With Colorado, we were told that Rick Neuheisel was special. Which turned out to be, well, so not true. Neuheisel ran two strong programs into the ground and turned in a worse season last year than Karl Dorrell ever managed.

Now with Syracuse, they trot out Art Monk to repeat the nonsense that Gill didn't want the job, and it is unconditionally accepted by the New York media that gives a forum to Al Sharpton. (By the way, there was a black man on the Auburn board that interviewed Gill as well. Not that the media has told you that.)

Syracuse even put out the nonsense that Gill was trying to play them against Auburn. You mean the school that would have hired him on the spot had he consented to a staff of SEC assistants versus the school that a) could have hired him at any time after they fired their next Pete Carroll way back in mid-November and b) never had him as a serious candidate and c) was still nowhere near offering him a job?

Oh yes, and are we supposed to believe that schools regularly get in a huff and walk away from a candidate because he has an interview set up someplace else? Of course not. As a matter of fact, schools fight over hiring the guy that everyone else wants.

Yet everyone buys it. All of New York is convinced that Gill never wanted the Syracuse job to begin with, that Gill was trying to play Syracuse off against Auburn, and "who does he think he is" and claiming that he should have shown more interest in the Syracuse job in case he falls flat on his face at Buffalo, etc.

It really is unfair to Auburn. It is also unfair to the race issue. Why do we presume that racism only exists among lesser-educated people in the South, among people who go to and root for Auburn? That it does not exist among the Northern elites? That it may well be old money Wall Street blue-blood Northeastern types who bankroll Syracuse athletics that are opposed to a black man with a white wife, as opposed to Alabama cotton magnates?

Speaking of Al Sharpton and Spike Lee, they both say that the reason why they receive so much friction in an otherwise liberal media is that they expose the fact that there is just as much racism in the North among allegedly progressive people and institutions as there is anywhere else.

Had Sharpton held marches in Alabama instead of Bensonhurst, or Spike Lee made South Carolina instead of Brooklyn the subject of Do The Right Thing, they would have been celebrated. Instead, the very liberals who pretended to be so progressive on race reacted with rage when the mirror was shown on themselves.

After all, let's take a look at the Big East, which is mostly Northern institutions. What is their history of hiring black coaches? Well, it appears that they have had ONE in their entire history: Ron Dickerson. At TEMPLE. 1993-1997. Temple isn't even a Big East school anymore, that's how bad a job that was. So it has been FIFTEEN YEARS since the Big East hired its last black football coach to its WORST PROGRAM.

The truth is that Southern programs have a much better record than their Northeastern counterparts. There have been black coaches at Louisville, Wake Forest, and Mississippi State since Temple hired Dickerson, and there is currently a black coach at Miami.

Further, Charlie Strong turned down the Vanderbilt job, Gill could have had the Auburn job if he had wanted it badly enough, and Joker Phillips will be the next head coach at Kentucky. So why is the New York Times going after Auburn instead of looking at their own backyard?

Everyone owes Auburn an apology. (The AP share of the 2003 national title when the Reggie Bust—excuse me, Reggie Bush—investigation finally finishes would be a nice start. I know, I won't hold my breath.) And Syracuse deserves much more scrutiny than they have gotten.

Gene Chizik and Lane Kiffin: What is the Difference?

Gerald Ball — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:43:37 -0500

Lots of people who support the Lane Kiffin hire at Tennessee oppose the Gene Chizik hire at Auburn.

They include the estimable Lisa Horne, who supports the Kiffin hire but called the Chizik hire the most puzzling in the history of college football (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/92805-auburn-hires-gene-chizik-alabama-fans-fiddle-and-watch-the-fire#comment_435784). To them I say: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

I know that a primary cause of the frustration and disappointment with Auburn is that they did not hire Turner Gill, and as a result will leave Randy Shannon as the only black head coach at a BCS conference school.

(I address that thorny issue here: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/92771-turner-gill-stay-in-buffalo-charlie-strong-go-to-the-nfl).

Excuse me, but didn't Tennessee have the same responsibility to make every effort to hire a qualified black coach? The difference between Auburn and Tennessee is that Auburn did give two black coaches, Gill and Rodney Garner, a shot.

(Auburn also gave an opportunity to any number of qualified white coaches, like TCU's Gary Patterson, who has strangely been turned down for jobs in favor of lesser candidates for years now. Patterson hasn't had anywhere near the opportunities that his successor, Dennis Franchione, has wasted.)

Tennessee threw a pile of money at Kiffin and his suspect qualifications without making any real effort at interviewing or trying to identify more qualified black OR white candidates.

And yes, I did call Kiffin's qualifications suspect. The guy spent two years as co-coordinator for USC and a year and a half as head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

In his second year, when he didn't have Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, etc. but still had a ton of five-star recruits on offense, he managed to lose two games to mediocre Pac-10 foes, including being held without a TD by 6-7 UCLA.

Now we are not supposed to hold his Raiders experience against him, as no one can possibly succeed with Al Davis, it is said.

Fine, except that Art Shell took the Raiders to the AFC title game. Jon Gruden took the Raiders to the playoffs twice. And Bill Callahan took them to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, who has ever done ANYTHING at Iowa State EVER?

Now Gene Chizik? He was coordinator of undefeated Auburn's No. 2 ranked defense in 2004 and then went on to be the coordinator of a very opportunistic Texas defense the next year.

While that Texas defense was loaded, that Chizik defense for Auburn didn't have that many big-time recruits or high draft picks. Also, Auburn's defense had a reputation for underachieving before finally taking off under Chizik.

Meanwhile, the Texas defense was long the weak link in Mack Brown's program. Brown refused to fire his coordinator for years until it was clear that unless he made the change, he himself would be fired.

So Brown hired Greg Robinson, whose defense was not great, but good enough to get Texas into the first major bowl game of Mack Brown's long career.

But Chizik in one year (it actually takes a couple of years to pick up Chizik's complicated defense) gave Brown clearly his best defense since his days at North Carolina.

And yes, upon Chizik's leaving, Texas' defense went back to being its weak link, necessitating Brown's hiring Will Muschamp, and Texas naming Muschamp "head coach in waiting" to prevent him from leaving as Chizik did.

So, we see tangible evidence that Gene Chizik's coaching gave great benefit to Auburn and Texas, in both cases giving those programs part of the difference they needed to become champions.

(Although it is fair to point out that the development of Vince Young at Texas and the hiring of Al Borges at Auburn played other roles.)

Did Lane Kiffin provide a similar benefit to USC? Of course not.

Quite the contrary, the playcalling of Kiffin and Sarkisian and their frustrating inability to develop or properly use USC's great skill talent on offense was the weak link that held the team back.

Again, not only did they actually lose two games in 2006, but it was only Reggie Bush's singular effort that saved them against 8-4 Fresno State plus the combination of Bush and sheer luck to save them against a Notre Dame team that Ohio State rolled up 620 yards of offense on.

That was not all. USC needed a huge performance from LenDale White to overcome 6-5 Arizona State, and didn't pull away from 3-8 Arizona until halfway through the fourth quarter.

In that game, Leinart actually had to resort to scrambling to beat Arizona's well-conceived gameplan.

So all the people who are screaming "GENE CHIZIK IS NOT WHAT AUBURN NEEDS TO COMPETE WITH NICK SABAN"...well, what of Lane Kiffin? Excuse me, but Alabama plays Tennessee every year too.

As a matter of fact, Alabama considers Tennessee their chief rival, not Auburn, and the feeling is mutual with Tennessee fans. Just as UGA is only Tennessee's secondary rival, Auburn is only Alabama's second rival.

And further, Kiffin is in the SEC division with the better, more accomplished coaches. Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier, Mark Richt, Rich Brooks: those guys are in the SEC East.

We can't even ignore Bobby Johnson, who got Vanderbilt to their first bowl game since 1982 and has recruited or developed future NFL players like QB Jay Cutler and record-setting WR Earl Bennett.

So not only will Kiffin be facing off against Saban every year, but he will be facing the better group of coaches in the SEC East. By contrast, once you get past Saban, the group of coaches in the SEC West is not nearly as accomplished and respected.

Les Miles has won a BCS bowl and a title with an absolutely loaded team; Bobby Petrino won the Big East title and beat Wake Forest in a BCS bowl; Houston Nutt is a proven, solid coach; and that is really just about it.

This is the best part: Chizik actually knows something about the SEC. He has spent time in the conference as a coordinator, and further recruited against SEC teams as defensive coordinator for Central Florida.

By the way: where Chizik has been a coordinator or head coach since 1998, for 10 years, Kiffin has only served in a coordinator or head coach position for four.

Basically, Chizik has been a head coach or coordinator since Kiffin was 23 years old, and spent most of that time in the area where he will be recruiting and coaching. Kiffin, meanwhile, has no concept of recruiting and coaching in the SEC.

Kiffin betrayed his ignorance in his initial press conference with two quotes. The first quote: he spoke of drawing a line around the state of Tennessee and keeping the best prospects in.

(Tennessee by far produces the least talent of all the SEC states. Try to win with Tennessee talent, and your ceiling is 6-6.)

The second quote: he casually stated that Tennessee would beat Florida next year.

(As if Florida's accomplishments, as well as those of Nick Saban and the other SEC coaches who have been unable to beat Meyer, are meaningless. Meyer, Saban, Spurrier, and everyone else in the SEC will be sure to remind Kiffin of his comments.)

So why the outrage over the Chizik hire and the praise over the Kiffin hire? Simple: USC. More to the point: the SEC/Pac-10 thing all over again.

The media regards the Pac-10 as having much better coaching, especially in terms of the passing game, Xs and Os, and gameday coaching.

The media regards the SEC has having some of the worst coaching, relying mainly on talent and weak nonconference scheduling to dominate with the running game and the defense.

The media sees the Pac-10 as the highest level of college football, the closest there is to the NFL, and USC as the best that the Pac-10 has to offer.

So basically, the media shares Kiffin's thoughts: that USC would destroy Florida or any other SEC conference or national champion just as they did Auburn and Arkansas, and the SEC's accomplishments are meaningless because they do not include a victory against USC.

As a result, the media believes that Kiffin's bringing the USC way of doing things to the SEC will only improve the coaching and level of play in the SEC.

Of course, the media felt the same way when Ed Orgeron took over the Ole Miss program. You saw the result. It took an SEC coach to actually win with Ed Orgeron's players.

And back in the 1990s, the media also insisted that FSU and the ACC had better coaches than the SEC schools that were winning on talent.

But FSU's Brad Scott failed at South Carolina, and FSU's Mark Richt, while certainly elevating UGA's level of play, is far from the best coach in the SEC.

But Chizik, being primarily an SEC guy, is not regarded as a guy who is going to make the SEC smarter and more modern. He is not a Pac-10 guy and moreover not a USC guy. So, he is not going to be anything special, just business as usual.

This is not to say that I agree with the Chizik hire. There were better options, including at least three of the assistants at Florida (Mullen, Strong, and McCarney) plus any number of I-AA and mid-major coaches with strong southeastern ties.

But people claiming that the Chizik hire was so horrible ought to be forced to declare what they think about the Kiffin hire. Tennessee made a much worse hire (a very inexperienced and unqualified candidate with a checkered track record and no knowledge whatsoever of SEC football) than Auburn did.

The media needs to take off their USC-loving (and SEC-hating) glasses long enough to acknowledge that.

If Chizik hires a strong staff, he can actually get good central Florida and Texas talent into Auburn, something that the Tigers have little history of attracting.

Chizik actually has the potential to make Auburn better based on his past experience with lesser (Central Florida) and better (Texas) programs. Kiffin: not so much.

There is nothing in Kiffin's past that translates to success in the SEC, and particularly at the toughest recruiting sell of SEC schools that desire to compete for conference titles.

(Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Arkansas, and Kentucky are tougher sells in recruiting, but those schools have no SEC title aspirations).

It is only people who believe that success in the SEC is no great accomplishment who believe otherwise.

Turner Gill: Stay in Buffalo! Charlie Strong: Go to the NFL!

Gerald Ball — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:08:29 -0500

Charlie Strong

One of the top defensive coordinators in the country for the past 10 years. An outstanding football mind, great recruiter, and whose defenses have played a huge role in getting Florida to the national title game for the second time in four years.

And the previous three Florida defensive coordinators in a row all became head coaches, making being Florida's defensive coordinator a pipeline of sorts. And what has that gotten Charlie Strong? 1) Minnesota turned him down for Tim Brewster. 2) Not one single school has contacted Florida for permission to interview Strong. Not a single one.

Turner Gill

A big time quarterback in Nebraska. QB coach for two national championship QBs and a Heisman Trophy winner. As a recruiter, he was able to get some of the better recruits in Texas to see spending four years in Lincoln as a good idea.

Was repeatedly passed over at Nebraska for the offensive coordinator position, and was actually demoted from QB coach to WR coach. Made the terrible career move of turning down the Oklahoma offensive coordinator job for Bob Stoops.

Applied to be head coach at several schools, including mid-majors and even a I-AA school, was turned down. Gets frustrated, leaves Nebraska for the NFL, and is ultimately hired by Buffalo, the worst program in Division I-A and worst than quite a few Division I-AA and Division II programs.

Wins the MAC in three years and turns Drew Willy, who had absolutely no profile as a high school recruit, into an NFL prospect. Oh yes, and Gill also serves as Buffalo's offensive coordinator.

That came in handy, because when defenses had adjusted to the offense largely centered around Willy, and Buffalo lost a couple of games, Gill changed the offense to start running the ball out of the I-formation with one of his talented recruits (how many West Coast offense coaches are willing to resort to that?) to save the season.

Another of Gill's recruits happens to be a WR whose only other offer was to a I-AA school. He is one of the leading WRs in the MAC as an underclassman.

What did that get Gill? Passed up for the Nebraska job in favor of Bo Pelini, so beloved by the Nebraska faithful based on his being their defensive coordinator for ONE SEASON. Which makes no less than five times that Nebraska passed Gill up for head coach or offensive coordinator.

And now, passed up for the Syracuse job in favor of a fellow that is an offensive coordinator who does not even call plays for the New Orleans Saints (who will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row) and has not been involved in college football since 1994.

Also now, passed up for the Auburn job in favor of Gene Chizik. Now, the Chizik hire is actually not a particularly bad one, but it renders the criticisms of Gill (he lacks enough experience as a head coach, he has a losing record, he is not a big name) that the "anyone but Gill" contingent at Auburn (and yes it did exist!) kept raising.

Also, why try their best to pry away Will Muschamp, Jimbo Fisher, and finally hire Gene Chizik without even interviewing Charlie Strong? It obviously cannot be based on winning five games in two years at Iowa State; if Chizik was hired it was because of his coordinator experience.

But Strong is obviously more experienced and accomplished as a coordinator at South Carolina and Florida, and could help Auburn compete for players in both states.

So the top assistant in the SEC can't even get hired at Minnesota. The coach who turned in the most incredible and shocking turnaround job since Bill Snyder at Kansas State (and keep in mind, it took Snyder a lot longer than three years!) gets passed up for one guy with no head coaching experience at two jobs and a guy whose head coaching experience was actually a negative at the third.

And did Tennessee even consider Gill or Strong before hiring Lane Kiffin, whose credentials were even less than those of Pelini, Chizik, or Marrone? If they did, it wasn't very long. And this year is not an aberration. Quite the contrary, it has been going on for a long time, and you see the result.

So the way I see it, Gill, Strong, and other top black college assistants have three choices. All of them are based on the heavy probability, based on current and past events, that no matter what your individual merits, you are never going to be a head coach at a major program that has the resources and support to compete.

As a matter of fact, there is no evidence that you have such a shut at a leading mid-major, because Utah turned down Turner Gill, too!

1. Be content to be an assistant at a major school for the rest of your career, and continue to use your coaching and recruiting talents to contribute to the success of lesser experienced and qualified head coaches who keep getting the jobs that you deserve.

2. Be content to fill lesser opportunities at schools that lack the resources to compete for anything except occasional bowl eligibility.

3. Go to the NFL, where you can make more money for less work and also have a much greater chance of becoming a head coach. That is true: a black man is much more likely to become head coach of the Dallas Cowboys than the Texas Longhorns (or even Texas A&M); of the New York Giants than of Syracuse (who hypocritically changed their name from Orangemen to Orange because of meaningless political correctness, but won't take a real stand and do the right thing when it counts); of the Pittsburgh Steelers than of Pitt.

Turner Gill, you obviously love the college game and the chance to mold young men. Do so by staying at Buffalo, the place that gave you a chance to be a head coach when your own alma mater wouldn't let you be offensive coordinator (which again, you are doing a much better job of being for Buffalo than the ineffective coordinators that Frank Solich hired over you).

Do not go to Iowa State or any of these other schools where you have no shot at being a champion. Stay at Buffalo, where you have already proven that you can be a winner, and in five years laugh at how Buffalo will be a better program than Syracuse.

It won't pay you as much money, of course, but someone with your Christian beliefs already knows that Jesus Christ told the rich young ruler, something about it being easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle.

You don't have to be part of the insanity where guys like Les Miles and Nick Saban are being paid obscene amounts of money by the same state governments that won't even make the effort to hire qualified administrators for their public schools.

Charlie Strong, go to the NFL. First off, your rival coordinator at the University of Georgia who frustrated your best efforts when you were at South Carolina and Florida, Brian VanGorder, chose that route and is an NFL defensive coordinator already.

VanGorder is white, of course, but it shows how the NFL, due to it being run like a corporation rather than these college football factories that get fat off taxpayer dollars and booster contributions, is much closer to being a meritocracy that has long abandoned the good old boy network.

VanGorder will be an NFL head coach (or a college one based largely on his NFL experience) at a major program must faster than you will become a college coach at a major program.

Second, Mike Tomlin. Heard of him, Charlie Strong? Head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers at age 34. When he was hired, everyone said that it was a bad affirmative action hire by an aging liberal owner, coming at the worst possible time for a team that was aging and rebuilding.

Ken Whisenhunt, who had been a Steeler's assistant for years, deserved that job, people said. Well, while Whisenhunt has certainly proved his worth by taking the Arizona Cardinals to the playoffs, Tomlin has survived massive free agent defections, injuries to key players, and the aging and declining production of other key players to take the Steelers to the playoffs for the second year in a row.

And no one can possibly accuse Tomlin of being a caretaker. He has made tangible changes on both sides of the ball to the Bill Cowher system that he inherited: playing more 4-3 defense and trying to open up the offense. Tomlin is 13 years your junior, Charlie Strong. That could be you. That SHOULD be you!

Now Strong and Gill, what everyone wants is for you guys to be the next coach at programs that have very little potential, the bottom feeders that in their best years will finish with .500 conference records. Again, there are already rumblings of how great it would be for Turner Gill to take the Iowa State job, and you can expect Strong to be added to those names, too.

Nonsense, I say. The only thing such a thing would accomplish would be to say that we have another black coach in a BCS conference, and that would relieve pressure on big time college football for another year when in reality nothing has changed.

A black man will still be much more likely to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company (Richard Parsons of Time Warner), governor of a major state (David Paterson, New York), or even general manager of the New York Yankees (Bob Watson) and New York Giants (Jerry Reese) championship teams than head football coach at a college program that deems itself capable of contending for conference or national titles.

A massive building or rebuilding job? Yes. A job at a sideways nominal I-A program? Yes. But a program that can see itself playing in the Orange Bowl within three years? Not a chance.

So Charlie Strong, go to the NFL. Turner Gill, stay at Buffalo. And as for the other top black college assistant coaches (or those aspiring to be), consider the 1., 2. and 3. above and start planning your career choices wisely. Keep in mind: big time college football has no reason to change their ways.

There are tons of qualified white coaches out there that can win titles. They are guaranteed the best athletes by virtue of location and facilities. They are guaranteed funding streams thanks to tax money (for the public schools, huge endowments for the few private big time football schools) and obscenely wealthy boosters and alumni. So why bother?

They also have no reason to change their ways so long as they can keep hiring GUYS LIKE YOU. Guys like you who serve as the experienced, capable coordinators to help the head coaches succeed. (For instance, it was Charlie Strong's defense that made Urban Meyer's running the read option with Chris Leak SEEM like a success.)

And guys like you who recruit elite athletes that otherwise would NEVER CONSIDER most of these programs. As long as you continue being great recruiters and coordinators for programs that will never hire you as head coaches, well then why hire you as a head coach?

To borrow a proverbial cliche whose application is usually entirely different, why buy the cow when you are getting the milk for free?

And what is absolutely worst is this humiliating interview process that these major schools put black coaches through. Now when it is a guy that they really want, they don't interview them. They just step up, make the offer, and open up the checkbooks. So, when you see major schools interviewing black candidates, truthfully they have no intention of hiring them. It is only for PR purposes.

And that is why Charlie Strong has not been interviewed this year. After the humiliation of being passed up by lesser qualified candidates, and after the fact that he has been interviewed so many times without having been hired in the past being used as an excuse for not hiring him (yes, its true!).

Strong let it be known that he was sick of being the affirmative action interview and that only serious inquiries, people actually considering hiring him, would be fielded.

You see the result. And yes, Gill has been through the same thing. Nebraska was going to hire Bo Pelini from day one. Syracuse was going to open up the checkbooks for Lane Kiffin, but when Tennessee beat them to the punch was doing their best to get Skip Holtz in the entire time they brought Gill in for his "first and second interview", and only when the Holtz negotiations fell through, they immediately rolled out Marrone almost out of the blew.

And while Auburn was "interviewing" Gill, they were actually offering the job to former Auburn assistants.

At least Mike Locksley didn't have to go through this nonsense. When he saw that Syracuse was only using him for PC purposes, he jumped on the New Mexico job. Of course, Locksley was probably aware of the "hiring process" that his former boss's employer, Illinois, put several top black college and NFL assistants through.

Illinois decided to hire Ron Zook immediately after Florida fired him. But, because the state of Illinois has affirmative action regulations that must be adhered to before any hire can be "officially" made, Illinois had to go through the motions of interviewing several black coaches, who were urged to comply because if they played along in this game, if they made a good impression on the Illinois officials it could be used to get them jobs elsewhere. So, how's that working out? Just what I thought.

Keep in mind: This situation exists only because the better black college assistants participate. With their merit and hard work, they contribute to the success of the very winning programs that do not need to hire them as head coaches.

And by interviewing for big time jobs that have no actual interest in hiring them, they allow them to pretend that they were strongly considered but lost out to guys who were more qualified or had more ties to the program, and that "next time" they will get the job for sure. And by taking the jobs that no one else really wants, they keep the heat off the big time programs.

So, what has to happen is that coaches like Strong and Gill need to stop keeping the nonsense going. Stop participating in sham interviews. Stop taking bad jobs. And as soon as you are able, leave for the NFL so you can stop contributing to the success o the big time college programs that will never hire you.

This isn't a boycott. This isn't civil disobedience. I am actually rather conservative and agree with freedom of association and contract. I think that these programs have the right to hire whoever they choose without being coerced by laws or pressured by activists.

I also think that a person is better off being hired into a situation where he is wanted. So, I guess that in feeling this way, I would make a very poor civil rights activist.

However, we also must acknowledge that times have changed. The 1950s have long passed, and with it the practice of forcing blacks onto people who would rather not be bothered with them. In times past, forcing people to change was required in order for blacks to have any opportunity at all.

In these times, if one door is closed because certain people don't want to change, other doors are available.

For Gill, staying at Buffalo is a great opportunity. (A lot of that is due to Gill himself, of course, but that is neither here nor there.) The MAC as currently constituted is not very competitive (mostly a bunch of Ohio and Michigan directional schools that aren't much better than I-AA programs cannibalizing each other for Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and now new Big East members Cincinnati and Louisville leftovers), and there are comparatively few I-A football programs in the northeast (Syracuse, Buffalo, Rutgers, UConn, Pitt, Temple, Penn State would be about it).

Gill could actually make Buffalo into one of the leading mid-majors like Utah, TCU, or Boise in 10 years. In other words, it is everything that the New Mexico State job that ruined the coaching career of Gill's Nebraska protege Tony Samuel (the defensive line coach who build the great fronts for those '90s Nebraska title teams) ISN'T.

(By contrast the New Mexico situation that Mike Locksley is walking into isn't that bad for a 38-year-old coordinator who has only produced one winning season, especially if Locksley fully commits to a version of the read option that is rarely seen out west.)

For the other top black assistants in the college game, the door available is the NFL. They should take it. Not to force social change. After all, having one of the 50 desirable head-coaching jobs is not the sort of change worth fighting for, nothing resembling the fights for education, jobs, voting rights, integration and housing of decades past.

Truthfully, the Black Coaches Association should not even exist, because their mission is so narrow and provides no benefits to anyone other than those in their own little circle. Sort of the equivalent of how feminists who are already wealthy and privileged like Martha Burke make a huge deal of trying to force all male country clubs to admit them.

Instead, they should head for the NFL because it is in their own personal best interests and offers them the best opportunity for advancement. And if a mass exodus of said assistants to the NFL causes the college game to see how bad they need their talents and forces a change to take place, then that is good, too.

But that is not the reason why the Charlie Strongs of the world to leave. Instead, the reason should be that they are going to a place where they have a much better chance of being a head coach.

Oklahoma-Florida: Who Will Win?

Gerald Ball — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:28:46 -0500

Oklahoma versus Florida. Meyer versus Stoops. Tebow versus Bradford. Big 12 versus SEC. Who will win? A brief, unscientific, unprofessional, and completely biased breakdown.

Things Favoring Oklahoma

1. Oklahoma is more tested. Oklahoma played better coached, more talented teams in and out of conference this year, and it isn't close. The Sooners played Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State in conference, and Cincinnati and TCU out of conference. Florida's only games against teams comparable to these five were Alabama and Georgia. Advantage: Oklahoma.

What gives Florida hope: If USC, FSU, and Ohio State have won national titles from conferences that are almost always down, Florida can win a national title from a conference that had one bad year.

2. The matchups would appear to favor Oklahoma. Oklahoma's best in NCAA history offense (702 points, 4000 yard passers, and two 1,000 yard rushers) against a young undersized Florida defense with a battered secondary favors Oklahoma. Meanwhile, if Oklahoma's defense were able to slow down Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, they could do the same to Florida's offense.

What gives Florida hope: Florida will still easily be the most talented offense or defense Oklahoma will play this year. Also, Oklahoma has generally relied on big plays on both sides of the ball.

If Florida is able to avoid sacks and turnovers on offense and force Oklahoma to sustain drives on defense, will Oklahoma be able to win the type of game Florida just did in the SEC title game?

3. Bob Stoops has lost several BCS games in a row, including two national title games and humiliating losses to Boise, USC, and West Virginia. Can't keep a guy like him down forever. He is due, and will pull out all the stops, and so will his players.

What gives Florida hope: It may be that Stoops' recent troubles in big games indicate some sort of persistent flaw in his program talented, well-coached teams with a month to prepare can exploit, such as the pass defense and protection problems plaguing Oklahoma since 2004.

Then again, Florida is not exactly a passing team, and their undersized, battered defensive line may not be able to get much pressure on Sam Bradford without blitzing.

4. As many problems as Stoops has had recently in big games, he has been there before. He is a much more experienced coach in big games than is Meyer, whose entire big game history was a BCS game at Utah against 8-5 Pitt, a 2006 regular season showdown against LSU (at home), the 2006 national title game against Ohio State, and this year's SEC championship game.

By contrast, this will be Meyer's first big game against a team with equal or better coaching and talent.

What gives Florida hope: Where Stoops is only about .500 in big games and is actually way under .500 since 2003, Meyer is undefeated. Maybe he and his staff simply are just that good. Then again, until the 2003 national title game, Stoops was the guy who just simply never lost. Meyer will eventually lose the big one, and this year may be the year.

So those are four huge areas that favor Oklahoma.

This Is Basically All That Favors Florida

1. Texas beat Florida 45-35. Florida runs the same schemes as Texas does on both sides of the ball, except with better coaching and players. As a matter of fact, Texas has won three out of four against Oklahoma since switching to the read option, and West Virginia shredded Oklahoma with that offense last year also.

So...why don't more Big 12 teams go to the read option instead of continuing to emulate Oklahoma? Ask the next Big 12 coach who refuses to hire Texas or Florida coordinators Greg Davis, Dan Mullen, or Charlie Strong, or for that matter refuses to hire the guys who put in the read option at Penn State who saved Joe Paterno's job.

It is obvious this offense gives Stoops problems, and this is the best version of it Stoops has ever faced in terms of talent and coaching.

And on defense: Will Muschamp and Charlie Strong run basically what is becoming the boilerplate SEC defense? Which is a shame because Strong was more of an innovator at South Carolina.

Difference: Charlie Strong is in his fourth year of putting in his defense at Florida, Muschamp is in his first year of doing so at Texas, as Mack Brown foolishly let Duane Akina undo what Gene Chizik accomplished.

What gives Oklahoma hope: Even though the Sooners lost, Oklahoma has already faced a top-three team very similar to Florida. By contrast, Florida has not seen anything at all to prepare them for Oklahoma since, well, ever. Three teams ran a spread offense in the SEC this year.

However, they were South Carolina, Auburn, and Tennessee. Combined record: 17-19. Get the picture? Now the Ohio State team Florida defeated for the national title was running a conservative version of the Oklahoma offense.

However, that Florida defense was bigger, more experienced, healthier, and better than this current version. But in general, Florida doesn't see a quality wide open offense of the sort Oklahoma has, and despite what is commonly believed, Florida's defense is actually more likely to give up some quick early scores and get blown off the field.

Also, if Florida's undersized defensive line can't pressure Bradford or stop the run without blitzing, and if their young battered secondary does as poor a job against Oklahoma's WRs as they did against Julio Jones, Florida is not going to keep Oklahoma under 45.

2. Tim Tebow is the best player Oklahoma will face this season. Why? Because he is the best player in college football.

He doesn't deserve the Heisman, as a matter of fact, he would be third on my list behind Colt McCoy and Michael Crabtree. But if there is anyone capable of making big plays throwing and passing to keep his team in the game so they can have a chance to win at the end, then it is Tebow.

What gives Oklahoma hope: Three things actually. First off, Tebow isn't Vince Young. While off the field it may not NECESSARILY be a bad thing (and this coming from someone who is a huge Vince Young fan!), on the field, Young had the key ingredient a QB in this offense needs; an extra gear, and breakaway speed. Where Tebow runs like a fullback, Young runs like a wide receiver.

Second, Tebow isn't Colt McCoy, either. McCoy is a much better passer at this stage.

Third, Bradford may not be Tebow, but Bradford has Chris Brown, DeMarco Murray, Juaquin Iglesias, Jermaine Gresham, Manuel Johnson, Ryan Broyles, Quentin Chaney, and apparently now someone named Mossis Madu. While Tebow definitely has much more around him than does Colt McCoy, based on stats it appears that Bradford has more help.

This Oklahoma team is more loaded than the somewhat overrated (Okay, a lot overrated!) team which lost back to back BCS title games 2003-2004. And if you notice the only players from that team that are doing anything in the NFL are Mark Clayton (and he isn't doing much) and Adrian Peterson (who Oklahoma only had in 2004).

Though he lacks a single player as good as Tebow, this is still Stoops' best offensive team ever, and it isn't close.

Final Analysis

Now, I am an SEC homer, so my official prediction is Florida will find some way to pull it out. But based on objective facts, I would predict Oklahoma 49 Florida 35.

Miscellania

Oklahoma would beat USC 28-14. USC's great defense would put up a valiant performance only to be betrayed by Steve Sarkisian over and over and over again.

Oklahoma would beat Alabama by a "who cares" amount. Alabama really only has about five players who are above average, most of whom are underclassmen. Saban and staff would use their smoke and mirrors to keep it close, but Oklahoma would make adjustments which Alabama is too thin and inexperienced to counter, plus Alabama would tire out. Basically the SEC title game all over again.

Texas would beat Oklahoma. See No. 1 under "things that favor Florida."

Texas would lose to Alabama, Florida, or USC. Reason: lack of a supporting cast for Colt McCoy. Texas has no starting tailback to speak of, and for a dropback QB who will make a fortune in an NFL west coast offense (Detroit Lions please take note!), Colt McCoy can only do as good a job that a pro-style QB pretending to be a dual threat QB is capable of. Also, WRs Jordan Shipley and Quan Crosby are not exactly stretch the field types.

Texas, and particularly Colt McCoy, deserves a world of credit for winning 11 games with a read option offense when they don't actually have read option personnel, but they have too many flaws that would get exposed by defenses that can fill the gaps and pursue, which describes Alabama, Florida, and USC.

This is not to say that any of them would shut Texas out, but because Texas doesn't exactly have a great defense, they wouldn't have to, which is why I supported Oklahoma going to the BCS title game. Texas is better than Oklahoma in a head-to-head matchup, but Oklahoma would beat more teams than Texas would.

Florida would beat USC. 1) Offenses similar to Florida's have always given Pete Carroll defenses fits, going back to that Kansas State game in 2002. Even Isaiah Stanback and Jake Locker for those horrible Washington teams put frights into mighty USC. USC fans can talk about how they shut down Juice Williams and Illinois, but come on, it was a 9-3 No. 15 team coached by the fellow Florida hired to fire Meyer who went 5-7 the following season. 2) USC's great defense would put up a valiant performance only to be betrayed by Steve Sarkisian over and over and over again.

Also, I think USC and Penn State will be a great game. USC will win, but it will be a lot closer than USC fans realize. However, USC fans will blame it on being bored with the Rose Bowl and continue to deny the fact a good read option team (which again Illinois never was) is a real threat to beat them.

Tommy Tuberville Earned His Fate at Auburn

Gerald Ball — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:11:14 -0500

Getting rid of Tommy Tuberville was the right thing for Auburn to do. This is the issue: Tuberville is an excellent defensive mind, recruiter and administrator who runs a clean program.

His problem is that he insists on meddling on the offensive side of the ball, especially in the passing game, and scapegoats his coordinators when things don't work out.

Tuberville has no idea when it comes to offensive formations, playcalling, and strategy, and even less of a clue regarding what makes a good college quarterback.

Best example: Jason Campbell. Campbell had a ton of ability, but Tuberville couldn't stand him because his idea of a great college quarterback is Jay Barker.

So Campbell was forced to platoon with the horrid Daniel Cobb for his first two seasons, and when he was allowed to play he was not given the freedom to audible or throw downfield that Tuberville gave his other QBs.

Tuberville was not above making cutting remarks about Campbell to the media, and allowed the story line to develop on talk radio and internet boards that Campbell wasn't intelligent enough to pick up the offense, which was very convenient to believe about black quarterbacks, and has dogged Campbell ever since, including hurting his draft stock.

Things got so bad for Campbell at Auburn, thanks to a coach who was undermining him, that his rival, UGA's David Greene, was actually forced to defend Campbell at press conferences.

(Also, Mobile native JaMarcus Russell abandoned his lifelong desire to play QB for Auburn and instead go to LSU as a direct consequence of what Campbell was enduring. Playing for Tuberville would have been a nightmare for Russell, who was more immature and mistake-prone than Campbell.)

Even after Campbell saved Tuberville's job by leading that 13-0 season, Tuberville continued to dog him, claiming that his replacement, Brandon Cox, would be a better player because "Cox was more intelligent and more of a leader like David Greene."

This was not some personality conflict between Campbell and Tuberville, but rather Tuberville having no idea what constitutes an effective QB in the modern college game ...someone who actually has to make plays with his arms and legs.

Tuberville had fairy tales in his head of the QBs, who played in the SEC in times past for Johnny Majors, Pat Dye, Bear Bryant, Vince Dooley, etc., who would throw 10 passes a game, spend the rest of the time handing off, and get all the credit for being intelligent leaders the one or two times a season they would actually successfully complete a pass on third and 15, or complete a long bomb late in a game to win 16-13.

That was why Tuberville's attempts to run first the pro-style spread (with Bobby Petrino as coordinator) then the West Coast offense (with Al Borges) and then the college spread with Tony Franklin were ridiculous ... your QBs need to make plays in all three schemes, and Tuberville was trying to win without a true playmaking QB, especially if that QB was Campbell or anyone like him.

As a result, any Auburn offense was doomed to failure as soon as SEC defenses began to adapt to them or when the talent level began to drop. In Tuberville's case, both happened.

Opponents have long figured out that QBs would never have any real freedom to make plays in Tuberville's offense no matter the QB, scheme, or coordinator, and Tuberville no longer has future NFL starters like Rudi Johnson, Brandon Jacobs, Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams, Jason Campbell, Ben Obomanu, Marcus McNeill, etc. to largely waste.

Just look at how Tuberville has run through so many coordinators. He ran off his first offensive coordinator, a highly respected fellow who built the offenses that helped Tuberville rebuild the mess that Terry Bowden left behind. (Unfortunately, this same fellow went on to become Tommy Bowden's scapegoat at Clemson as well.)

He then hired Petrino, whom he clashed with frequently and often even seemed to be jealous of. (That there was no love lost between Petrino and Tuberville explains why Petrino was so willing to take his job in such an underhanded fashion.)

After Petrino left, Tuberville decided to take the reins of the offense himself, giving offensive line coach Hugh Nall the title of coordinator but making it a mere administrative post. Tuberville himself was primarily responsible for offensive strategy, preparations and gameplanning while the QB coach called plays (with Tuberville having override authority).

Result: the preseason No. 1 with Campbell, Jacobs, Brown, and Williams in the backfield, a corps of talented WRs, and the best offensive line in the SEC being shut out by USC at home and held to 3 points by Georgia Tech.

Tuberville relinquished his long sought role on the offense to members of his staff, who took over the preparations and gameplanning and running the office in practice, was what saved the season (and Tuberville's job), but they still lost three more games, including humiliating performances against UGA and LSU and dropping a game to an Ole Miss team that had Eli Manning but not much else.

THAT fiasco was what drove the Auburn trustees to try to hire Petrino. It was done secretly because Auburn did not want to fire Tuberville without having a contract from Petrino first, which considering what happened to Notre Dame (who conceded to demands to fire Bob Davie, believing that they would get Jon Gruden, only to wind up with Ty Willingham, and then conceded to demands to fire Willingham believing that they would get Urban Meyer and winding up with Charlie Weis) was very appropriate and at most should have only been a minor scandal.

The only reason why it became a national scandal was because other SEC interests, other coaches and newspapers, made a point of talking about what a horror and outrage it was.

Why? Because they all knew that so long as Tuberville stayed in Auburn, he would never be a threat to build a dominant program. (The squealing was loudest, incidentally, from the newspapers that cover the Georgia Bulldogs, who wanted Tuberville right where he was for fear that Auburn would hire someone better. Tuberville is the perfect coach to have at your rival...someone who wins just enough to make it impossible to fire him, but not enough to beat you when you are really good and have a shot at contending for a conference or national title.)

But Tuberville has his 13-0 season (the one where he, because of his "win big or else" ultimatum, actually allowed his offensive coordinator to do his job), earns tons of sympathy from the national media who didn't know about the history of Tuberville with his first coordinator, Petrino, or the Hugh Nall fiasco and didn't care (quite the contrary seeing USC beat Auburn was quite to their liking, and quite frankly would love it if every team in the SEC had a coach like Tuberville) which restored Tuberville his clout.

Which, unfortunately, meant the clout to again start meddling with the offense. Al Borges, a West Coast offense guy, was forced to run 1980s SEC offenses and had Brandon Cox imposed on him with no one else being recruited to compete for the job.

When the painful Cox era ended (not only because Cox did not have the ability to be anything more than a backup, but literally because Cox was not durable and battled injury problems throughout his career, even more evidence that he should have never been more than a backup, and please realize that Cox realized his limitations soon after coming to Auburn and was going to give up football BUT WAS BEGGED BY TUBERVILLE TO COME BACK!) without Cox becoming the all-SEC one of the best in Auburn history greatness that Tuberville had vocally predicted for him, Tuberville reacted (again to save himself) by firing Borges and switching to the spread offense.

However, again, it was something of a sham. The coordinator that Tuberville hired was extremely inexperienced...having been not long removed from high school, only elevated from position coach to offensive coordinator two seasons prior at a Sun Belt school, and even for those two years was coaching a previously established system with mostly upperclassmen who already knew the offense, including a star QB.

So, Tony Franklin had no background that would have allowed him to teach and implement the spread offense in the SEC to a mix of underclassmen and players recruited for Tuberville's power ball control offense.

And that was another issue, and the reason why Tuberville hired such a low profile coordinator like Franklin to begin with. Franklin was not given complete control of the offense.

Like Borges and the west coast offense before him, Tuberville wanted Franklin to run the spread offense, but according to Tuberville's philosophy of reducing risk and freedom in the passing game.

That was what was really behind the QB controversy between Chris Todd and Kodi Burns. Everyone knew that the job should have been Burns, and Burns was the one that Tuberville personally favored.

But the true sophomore option QB from Arkansas is a mistake-prone playmaker, and the conditions that Tuberville imposed on Franklin made Todd the only viable choice. So when Todd tried and failed, firing Franklin and installing Burns (telegraphing to everyone that playing Todd was never his choice to begin with) was the first thing that Franklin did.

However, what else was Franklin supposed to do? Kodi Burns isn't Bob Griese or some other prototypical "efficient smart leader" I-formation QB, but rather someone who even with the best coaching would only be able to run a sophisticated offense and cut down mistakes halfway through his junior season.

(Burns should have been redshirted, incidentally, or better yet gone to a program whose offense better fit his skills like Kansas or Missouri or ironically what Houston Nutt was running at Arkansas at the time, but Tuberville got him to Auburn, promising to turn him into another Jason Campbell...as if Burns ever had Campbell's height, arm strength, or dropback passer background and game.)

Now it actually is possible to implement a ball control philosophy with a spread offense. The issue is that you need first the talent and then an experienced offensive coordinator to pull it off.

Now there is NO REASON to do so, mind you, because a ball control philosophy out of a spread offense is a contradiction...the spread formation acts against the strengths of the offense and vice versa.

But it is possible, and Bobby Petrino actually succeeded in giving Tuberville most of what he wanted. Had A) Cadillac Williams stayed healthy and B) Tuberville not insisted on the practice of benching Jason Campbell whenever he made a mistake in favor of Daniel Cobb, who had complete freedom to be as mistake prone and/or ineffective as he wanted to be and generally exercised that freedom with plenty of mistakes and ineffectiveness, Tuberville and Petrino would have built Auburn into a powerhouse.

But not only did Cadillac Williams keep getting hurt, but as stated earlier Tuberville could not be restrained from meddling. Also, the fact that Petrino was earning all this attention as the hot young coaching prospect and getting so much credit for the Auburn success, Tuberville couldn't deal with it.

Even the much lesser acclaim that Borges got for saving the careers of Jason Campbell and Ronnie Brown, Tuberville couldn't handle it.

But Tony Franklin did not have the experience or ability to meet Tuberville's demands. Even if he did, he didn't have the talent. Again, Petrino was able to meet Tuberville's contradictory delusions because he had a bunch of future NFL players.

Franklin had what amounted to an average SEC offense. In order to succeed, Franklin would have had to either go flag-football style like Hal Mumme at Kentucky or Mike Leach in his early days at Texas Tech, or continue with the ball-control offense while recruiting and teaching spread personnel.

I mentioned earlier that what Tuberville had been trying to do was unnecessary to begin with. Why? Because all Tuberville needed to do in order to get what he wanted out of his offense was to run a two tight end offense, either out of the I-formation (preferred since this is college ball) or what the Redskins used to run. A TE on one side, a TE or H-back on the other (with the H-back at times lining up in the backfield as a fullback) ... that is actually a spread formation because it is a one back offense that replaces the fullback with a pass catcher on the line of scrimmage, and you also have the option of taking even the RB out and going with 3 WRs and two TEs (especially if the TE that is playing H-back lines up in the backfield instead of the RB, and particularly if the QB is a scrambler that can run draw plays).

Yet, even though it is a spread look, because you are playing two TEs as opposed to three, four, or five WRs, you can still have a dominating rushing attack. And the QB will be able to make a living throwing safe passes to the TE instead of the high risk passing that Tuberville hates.

NFL teams have run that offense from time to time, including the 1999 Tennessee Titans that came within a play of winning the Super Bowl, the conference rival of the same Jacksonville Jaguars that Tuberville hired Bobby Petrino from.

All Tuberville had to do was hire an offensive assistant from Tennessee instead. But the fact that he didn't even look for a guy like that demonstrates my point: Tuberville doesn't know a thing about offense.

That isn't a bad thing, as again Tuberville is a defense guy anyway. The problem was Tuberville's insistence on meddling with the offense, his refusal to share glory with his offensive coordinators (especially Petrino), and his total refusal to accept responsibility when his plans failed. And that was why he had to go.

This is not just about the Franklin fiasco or the loss to Alabama. No one is going to force out a head coach after one bad season, especially not Auburn, who isn't exactly USC or Oklahoma when it comes to tradition.

Tuberville was forced out because he has been frustrating Auburn's fans, powerful boosters, and administration with his machinations for years.

And there is more evidence that he was simply losing control of his situation at Auburn: it was filtering down to the players.

Consider the DeRon Furr incident. DeRon Furr was one of the top QB prospects in the southeast and probably the top prospect overall in Tuberville's 2007 recruiting class. (One of Tuberville's biggest attributes is that he has a Frank Beamer-like quality of being able to find talented players without needing a boatload of four- and five-star recruits.)

Furr came to Auburn to run their new spread offense, as he himself led a Georgia high school to the state title using that offense. However, in spring drills, Furr found himself deep on the depth chart at QB, so he decided to switch first to WR and then to CB.

Fall practice comes along and Furr decides to move again, to safety. Now some of the Auburn defensive backs had developed the idiotic opinion that the team's underachieving the prior two seasons was due to the underclassmen not working hard enough.

So, they decided that they were going to beat the tar out of a freshman the next chance that they got. The ringleader? Zac Etheridge. So, when Furr starts trash talking (as football players are wont to do) and has trouble adjusting to the very tough fall practices in the SEC (as again high school true freshmen are known to do) Etheridge attacks Furr and several other defensive players pile on top of him.

No one, not another player or a coach, stood up for Furr, who was soundly pummelled by several older players. He had absolutely no opportunity to defend himself.

Furr, beaten and publicly humiliated in front of a team filled with virtual strangers, again none of whom lifted a finger to aid him, had to be helped off the field and to the locker room.

Even better: no action whatsoever was taken against Etheridge or the other losers who thought the way to win an SEC title was to gang up on and beat up a 17-year-old.

So Furr, perceiving himself as having no advocates at Auburn, transferred. Again, as one of the most highly touted players in the Southeast, there was much demand for his services, even after Tuberville limited his options by refusing to allow him to transfer to anyone on their schedule.

But Furr chose to play for a program where a respected former athlete at his high school was serving as defensive coordinator, to make sure that if he was ever violently scapegoated in such a manner again, something would be done to the malefactors.

That was not all the damage, as Furr's brother, who is also a highly regarded recruit, is obviously no longer going to go to Auburn.

So, this incident cost Auburn not only a future starting safety but also a starting linebacker as well.

Of course, when Furr left, he was called a quitter and a prima donna by the Auburn faithful (see the comments to this article http://bleacherreport.com/articles/44675-furr-fled-why-auburn-safety-deron-furr-quit for an example) and some even blamed Furr's father.

Again, make no mistake, the real reason why Etheridge and his band decided that beating up a freshman who likely was going to redshirt that season anyway was the way to win a national title was because of their frustrations at an Auburn program that failed to follow up on their 13-0 season with so much as a trip to the SEC title game.

The source of that failure? The offense. Whose fault was that? Tuberville.

Naturally, beating up and running off the top player in their recruiting class did not yield the result that Zac Etheridge and his sucker-punch allies desired, but the opposite: a 5-7 season.

But the root cause was nonetheless Tuberville's losing control of his program because of his own antics, and his failure to rise up to the occasion and defend his player (when Furr left Tuberville claimed that it was because Furr wanted to play quarterback, but as Furr will be playing defensive back at a lesser school that obviously wasn't it), and that was the same trait that was seen in Tuberville's undermining and then scapegoating a string of offensive coordinators.

Auburn had enough, and rightly so. They deserve a coach who will be accountable, instead of one who will keep blaming and firing people for his mistakes. They also deserve a coach who will simply let well enough alone, acknowledge his limitations, and let people who are capable and qualified to do what he is not serve in their jobs.

Now I will grant you: what Tuberville did at Auburn reminds me a lot of how Pete Carroll ran off Norm Chow, an action which cost Carroll at least two national titles (2005 and 2008) plus spots in the 2006 and 2007 national title games.

But A) Carroll has his two titles already and B) is in the Pac-10. He can afford to indulge his whims. But not only is Auburn in the SEC, he is not at one of the top programs in the SEC. Auburn will never enjoy the recruiting success that LSU, Alabama and Florida does.

It is not only a second-tier SEC program in terms of recruiting like Georgia and Tennessee, but even in that group they are at a disadvantage: Georgia pretty much has a much more populous and talent-rich state to itself (technically it shares the state with Georgia Tech, but in reality, unlike Auburn-Alabama, the two schools compete head to head for very few recruits, and when they do UGA almost always wins) and Tennessee has a history of being able to recruit nationally.

So Carroll will have five-star talent and a Pac-10 that cannot compete with USC in recruiting to mask the questionable gameday coaching, playcalling, and player development since Norm Chow left. (I bet Vidal Hazelton wishes that he had listened to his stepfather and gone to Penn State, don't you?!)

Auburn needs to develop players that will generally be lower profile recruits than those at LSU, Alabama, Florida, and even at times UGA and Tennessee, and often not much better than what a very good coach will be able to bring to Ole Miss, Arkansas, and South Carolina (the third tier, with Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Mississippi State making up the fourth).

Auburn couldn't afford to put up with Tuberville's nonsense any longer, and quite frankly put up with it longer than they should have. While that 13-0 season worked out very well for the Auburn players, the truth is that it only delayed Tuberville's inevitable departure and hurt Auburn in the long run.

Bobby Petrino (or preferably someone else really good, as I really do not like Petrino and do not think that the program of Bo Jackson, Brent Fullwood, Ronnie Brown, and Cadillac Williams should rely on a passing offense; look where it's gotten Mark Richt at UGA, not very far) should be at Auburn right now, but instead he will be one more very good coach that the next Auburn coach will have to beat to go along with Les Miles, Nick Saban, Houston Nutt, Mark Richt, Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer, Mike Bellotti, and Bobby Johnson in that conference. (Incidentally, Auburn should hire Bobby Johnson.)That will make hiring the next coach at Auburn that much harder.

Now Tuberville is still a very good coach. He will succeed wherever he goes. I hope Washington stops trying their best to throw away whatever there is left of Don James' legacy and hires him.

Syracuse could do a lot worse. Or Tuberville could sit on the sidelines for a season and see if Randy Shannon continues to flounder at Miami and gets himself fired.

But whoever hires Tuberville should condition his hiring on Tuberville's getting an experienced, respected offensive coordinator (hey, why not Borges!?!) and allowing that coordinator to do his job.

If Bobby Johnson doesn't want the Auburn job, then Auburn really does need to go after Wake Forest's Jim Grobe. (You won't get Mike Leach, Auburn fans.) Whoever it is, it has to be a person that doesn't mind the challenge of going up against LSU and Alabama with lesser players, so it is going to have to be someone used to competing with lesser players already.

Although if you hire Grobe, well I am concerned that he has been unable to upgrade his recruiting despite all the time that he has spent at Wake Forest, especially during the time that UNC and NCSU weren't any good.

Grobe should have been able to make real headway in North Carolina recruiting but failed, and now with Tom O'Brien and Butch Davis at UNC and NCSU (plus David Cutcliffe at Duke) that window has now closed, so it is a good time for Grobe to seek a graceful exit.

Auburn should be that place, but Auburn should require that former Auburn and now UGA assistant Rodney Garner be hired as his recruiting coordinator, even if it means making Garner defensive coordinator (an opportunity which Garner has long deserved anyway, but his previous stops have preferred he focus on recruiting).

So, hire Grobe, who has proven that he can consistently beat teams with better players (including both Ole Miss and FSU this very season!) and also hire Garner away from Georgia, severely weakening the Richt regime in the process. I don't see a downside. Hopefully Auburn's administration will see things the same way.

The Way Back For Notre Dame Foootball

Gerald Ball — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:32:20 -0500

Notre Dame is a mess.

They have not won a bowl game since 1993.

They have not won a national title since 1988.

Academic standards hinder recruiting.

Finally, they have not been a consistent factor on the national scene for 30 years, despite what ND fans would like to believe. Lou Holtz did not maintain his success, which Holtz never does, as Arkansas, Minnesota, North Carolina State, and South Carolina fans can attest.

So ND is not a national power, and has not been for decades.

Not years, but decades.

ND's biggest problem is that their fans will not accept this. They believe that ND can build itself into a contender quickly if only they had the right coach, and harass their administration into coaching moves accordingly.

Note that I said "build" instead of "rebuild" because that is precisely the case. College football is a completely different game than the one that Notre Dame dominated, and the society that the great Notre Dame teams of the past used to their benefit is long gone too.

This should surprise or shock no one.

After all, the Ivy League schools and service academies used to be huge football powers too. But just as changes to the game and society made that an anachronism, Notre Dame's fortunes have been decimated.

Things like a wide open brand of football, a fully integrated sport, huge population shifts from the midwest and northeast to the south, and scholarship limits.

Couple that with blanket national TV coverage (a change which ND itself helped usher in with a lawsuit in the early 1980s), national recruiting, and virtually all of the independents (save Notre Dame) joining conferences, Notre Dame is lagging behind.

So where Notre Dame was once able to get all the athletes, they needed to dominate I-formation and single wing football (and its predecessors) and then some merely by throwing open the gates.

Getting the athletes needed to compete in today's game to a Roman Catholic school in rural Indiana would be a real challenge, even if Notre Dame didn't place academic restrictions on recruiting.

Truthfully, ND's problems are simply part of much bigger issues plaguing upper midwestern and northeastern college football in general that gets often exposed in matchups against PAC 10 and SEC schools. ND's academics just makes it worse.

Can it be fixed? Of course. But it takes the right coach and the right system, and fans with reality based expectations that will give that coach and system time to take hold. Here is a gameplan.

1. Give Weis until next season at least: A big reason why ND was stuck with Weis to begin with was because a lot of other potential candidates felt that Willingham, and to an extent Davie before them, were never given a chance to succeed.

Firing a guy who had a wholesale rebuilding job while he is stuck coaching underclassmen all over the place will add to that story line and make hiring a quality coach virtually impossible.

Yes, Weis did make bad recruiting evaluations in his first two classes, which is precisely why he is playing underclassmen now. But when you hire a guy that has never been a head coach before and hasn't been on the college recruiting scene in decades (if ever) that is the learning curve that ND should have expected.

2. Ultimately remove Weis: It is not that Weis is a bad coach, per se. It is that the idea of winning with a complex pro style passing game at Notre Dame is absurd.

Programs like USC, Miami, and FSU were or are able to do it because they can recruit primarily in their backyard and can make up the rest with out of state recruiting, either raiding athletes from other sun belt states or attracting kids from colder climates to fun and sun.

Notre Dame is never going to beat those programs at their game because they are always going to have better players to do it with.

Notre Dame needs to run a different scheme where they can recruit different athletes. It worked for Nebraska in their wars against the southern schools (and for that matter everyone else) in the 1990s.

That is the route that Notre Dame and every other school outside the sun belt will have to take.

3. Don't try to hire a big name coach: Why? See above.

A big name coach is going to go where he can compete quickly. Notre Dame needs to be painstakingly built from the ground up so that it can be a contender five years (or more) down the road.

4. Stop going after big time recruits: The big time recruit that goes to ND, you don't want anyway.

Chances are he is a mistaken evaluation that the other schools have figured out and are backing off, or is seeking a situation where he doesn't want to compete against other top athletes to find out how good he is and to get better in order to win playing time.

These are the types of "highly recruited" players that ND has gotten for years and you see the results: guys with pedestrian ability, or guys who have some ability but only care about getting on the field and have no personal interest in the success of the program and therefore quit at the first sign of adversity.

5. Find a guy that can win that fits numbers 3 and 4: He is going to have to be the opposite of Pete Carroll and Urban Meyer, and more like a Frank Beamer, Mike Leach, Randy Edsall, Tom O'Brien, Paul Johnson or Jim Grobe.

Note to ND: do not waste your time trying to hire any of those guys. You had your shot at them before they became big names or landed into good situations and will not leave for your school.

Even Randy Edsall, if he didn't leave for the opportunity to go to Georgia Tech and get all the players that he needs from the Atlanta suburbs, he isn't going to come try to get players to South Bend. You need to identify the next player like that.

He is going to have to be able to identify guys that aren't highly recruited but have real talent, and guys who are lesser talented but are willing to invest a lot of themselves into your program.

6. Be patient: You will endure mediocre and even losing seasons. The style of football, which will likely be running the football and stopping the run, won't win you any style points with the media. But that is what it will take to build the sort of consistent winning programs that the better recruits who can actually play will actually take notice of.

7. Resist the spread or the read option offenses: It would have been one thing were ND one of the first to adopt the spread.

Adopting it now would make ND a follower instead of a leader, picking it up at a time when a lot of programs (including virtually everyone in the Big 12 and half the schools in the Big 10) are running it and people are getting a lot better at defending it.

It would be one thing for a program that can get the top players they need right off the bat to put it in, but whatever scheme ND runs they will have to do it with the diamonds in the rough and blue collar players that they can find.

ND needs to either get ahead of the curve with the next big thing in offense, or they need to just go back to old fashioned football.

8. Find a scheme that allows underclassmen to contribute immediately: Please look at Alabama and Ohio State. Both programs are key underclassmen, including true freshmen like Julio Jones and Terrelle Pryor, away from mediocrity.

And keep in mind: those are state universities located in rich recruiting beds who shouldn't be forced to rely on underclassmen, but yet they are.

Notre Dame, who ALWAYS is going to have to battle for top talent because of their academic restrictions and location, cannot afford to take guys capable of playing right away and sitting them on the bench until they are upperclassmen so they can learn some system.

Whatever defense or especially offense that ND runs, it has to be something where a talented underclassman can start almost immediately.

Again, the experience of Weis and Willingham should be instructive. Willingham recruited several top WRs early in his tenure, but could not play them because they did not know the offense. And Brady Quinn had and Jimmy Clausen had or are having the troubles that you would expect an underclassman QB trying to run a complex passing offense would.

While ND fans would love to maintain the pretension that recruiting smarter athletes will allow them to play more complex schemes, who has that ever actually won a title for?

NO ONE.

Play a simple, I-formation based offense that will allow your first and second year QBs, WRs, OLs, etc. to play right away if they are good enough to, and do something similar on defense.

Or failing that, a flag football run and shoot style offense that can grow in complexity with the talent (you can do more things with upperclassmen at QB and WRs) but at its core is actually pretty simple.

9. See 6. Be patient: Take Mike Leach. He is flying pretty high now, but he had a bunch of lean years. The same was true of Beamer at Virginia Tech. Jim Grobe had a rough early start, and now seems to be going through a setback at Wake Forest owing to ACC teams having figured out his offense. And so on.

When you aren't reeling in top recruiting classes filled with guys that can actually play year after year, you are going to have to go through your share of 4 and 5 win seasons before you hit the 9 and 10 win seasons consistently. Either way, 4 and 5 win seasons are in ND's future.

ND will either endure them going from coach to coach looking for the guy to come in and be the next Ara, Devine, Leahy or even Holtz (though you really don't want another Holtz) right away, or endure them letting someone develop into one of those guys while he builds a modern program capable of doing so.

Should Notre Dame join a conference? There are good arguments to be made either way. However, if they do, it should be the Big East and not the Big 10. If a tree falls in a forest with no one around to hear and see it, has it really fallen?

Well as I am someone who believes in the existence of definite propositional rational truth, the answer is yes. But if Notre Dame goes undefeated against a Big 10 conference schedule, will anyone really care? Nope.

Everyone will claim that ND hasn't proven anything until they beat USC and/or win a bowl game against a sun belt school. ND not only should not join the Big 10, but they should reduce the number of Big 10 schools that they currently play, because playing more teams from the cold upper midwest doesn't do a thing for Notre Dame's recruiting.

Notre Dame needs more games against teams from the areas of the country where they will be recruiting, and yes that does include mid-majors. Yes, Notre Dame has sunk to the level where scheduling UCF, USF, TCU and East Carolina would benefit them.

Might as well go ahead and do it, as well as hire coaches that can consistently get the best players that go to those schools to ND, because ND has demonstrated over the past few years that they ARE NOT truly in competiton with programs like Texas, Oklahoma, Florida or USC, but rather getting their table scraps and leftovers.

That is where ND is right now, and the sooner they admit it to themselves, the sooner they can do what is needed to get better.

Ranking The College National Title Contenders

Gerald Ball — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:24:59 -0500

1. Alabama. Tied with Texas Tech with the best record. Edges out Texas Tech by virtue of Tech's having played Division I-AA Eastern Washington, I-AA UMass, Nevada, and SMU.

I do not begrudge programs with little tradition and located in hinterlands like Lubbock doing what is necessary to build their program. (If Baylor had as much sense as Texas Tech does, they'd have a shot at a bowl game this year and would have certainly gone to one two years ago, and the same goes for Vanderbilt.) So rather than viewing this in terms of punishing Texas Tech, think of it as rewarding Alabama.

2. Texas Tech. If they beat Oklahoma and Missouri, they will have defeated four teams likely to win 10 games or more in five weeks. Based on that, any one loss team's challenge to them would be ridiculous. By the same token, were they to lose a game, EWU and UMass should eliminate them from the title game.

3. Florida. Clearly the worst loss of any team in contention. They are here only because no honest argument can be made for excluding the winner of a regular season ending contest between a 12-0 team and an 11-1 team from the national title game.

Incidentally, their nonconference schedule includes Hawaii, Miami, and FSU, not that any of you SEC bashers care. Florida has the nation's No.2 defense (behind Boise and Utah statistically, but come on they're Boise and Utah) and No.6 offense (excluding Tulsa for similar reasons) and might be the most balanced team with the best group of playmakers on both sides of the ball.

4. Oklahoma. Beat Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Missouri and you are in. Arguments otherwise are absurd as you will have a schedule arguably as tough as Florida's and definitely tougher than Alabama's or USC's.

Now the controversy starts.

5. Penn State. It is unfair to punish the Nittany Lions for the failures of Michigan and Ohio State in big games. The truth is that if things hold to form, Penn State will hold victories over 10-2 Ohio State, 9-3 Michigan State, and to that add Oregon State out of conference.

They are the No.3 defensive team and the No.7 offensive team (again, excluding mid-majors with numbers against weak competition). They are comparable to the other one loss teams.

6. USC. The difference between Penn State and USC is common opponents. Both beat Ohio State, and Penn State beat Oregon State, who beat USC. Other factors seem to favor USC over the Lions, including a better loss and a stronger overall schedule.

USC has the nation's No.1 defense (by a considerable margin) and the No.10 offense (considerably better than is generally portrayed). They are behind Oklahoma and Florida only by virtue of not having a contest against a legitimate contender for the championship game, and also having only one victory against a team that will finish the regular season in the top 20 (Ohio State).

USC fans, none of your annual nonsense about how "USC is obviously the best team that would beat everyone else in a bowl game or win a playoff and everybody else and everybody else they played is overrated except us and everybody that we played." Not only do I have to hear that stuff from USC every year, but it was the exact same nonsense that we heard from FSU fans during the 1990s.

7. Texas. You are stuck in a logjam with Oklahoma and Texas Tech. If all of you finish with a loss, then as stated earlier Texas Tech is eliminated, and it is between you and Oklahoma.

In a fair world, you guys should get to go over an Oklahoma team that you beat by 10 points. This is particularly the case since your best win, Oklahoma, would be more impressive than Oklahoma's best win, Texas Tech, and that the only difference between your schedule and Oklahoma's is their playing a TCU team that you would have blown out just as easily.

But who said that life is fair? I simply cannot reward a team with a bad defense and that is trying to run an option-oriented offense with neither a running quarterback OR a No.1 (or even a No.2!) tailback with a trip to the national title game. Oklahoma's defense is actually worse than yours, but they are a passing oriented team that will finish with 200 more RUSHING yards than your alleged option attack.

Seriously, this is the first Mack Brown Texas team to actually OVERACHIEVE since his early ones. And in this instance, I will abandon my usual standard of leapfrogging teams with victories over plausible contenders over teams that lack them that would normally cause me to favor Texas over USC.

You see, USC would have little problem scoring against Texas' suspect defense, but Texas would certainly be shut down by the USC defense because their personnel doesn't fit their scheme. Meanwhile, USC would be forced to trade points with Texas Tech and Oklahoma.

It wouldn't be a shootout, but I could very much see a 28-24 with who gets the 28 and who gets the 24 would be a function of which team is better coached and performs better. But Texas is the only team in the top seven that would almost certainly lose to a superior defense.

Bottom line: where Oklahoma and Texas Tech can score on anyone because they actually have the talent to fit their scheme, Texas more than anyone else is obviously benefiting from the worst defenses in the history of what used to be a smashmouth Big 8/Big 12 Conference. Mack Brown, please recruit a tailback and a true dual threat QB. Texas high school football has been known to produce both you know.

8. Utah: Don't laugh. Their schedule is actually roughly comparable to what USC's would be had they not played Ohio State, or what an undefeated champion of the ACC or Big East would be.

If Alabama and Texas Tech both lose, they would have a legitimate argument. As a matter of fact, their schedule compares very favorably with USC's 2003 schedule. If they run the table, they will have a better grievance for being left out of the title game this year than USC had in 2003, who had a loss to an 8-6 Cal team that season that lost to...well Utah! Just like Utah beat Oregon State.

An undefeated Utah is more deserving than a one loss USC. They are not more deserving than a one loss Texas, because Texas (unlike USC) has beaten a legitimate contender and does not have a loss to a common opponent. And yes, Utah would have the same issues against an elite defense that Texas would.

So Utah has to be eight because they need to be behind Texas, which in turn needs to be behind USC. Were Texas to lose again, Utah would leap to No.6, knocking PSU to No.7.

Do not mistake me for trashing USC, incidentally. Quite the contrary, USC is still very much in it. USC would go over Penn State, which is unfair, but hey it is still true. All USC needs is for any of A) Florida to lose to South Carolina or FSU beat Florida, B) Alabama to lose to Auburn but beat Florida, or C) the winner of Texas Tech-Oklahoma to lose to Missouri.

Of those, A) is most likely. Most people have no idea how good South Carolina's defense actually is. Their front seven may cause real problems for Florida's offense, plus you KNOW that Steve Spurrier doesn't want interloper Urban Meyer to outdo his legacy by bringing home two national titles (yes, most SEC folks are looking at the defenses in the Big 12 and figure Florida could take them ... they are not as sure about Alabama) and willl pull out all the stops.

Recall that it was South Carolina that nearly knocked Florida out of the title game in 2006. And then there is FSU, which is a road game against an in state rival. B) is somewhat likely. The Alabama game will be their entire season and may even be for Tuberville's job.

And I have long felt that the best defense to stop the spread option is the 3-4, which Alabama runs (although sadly for the Crimson Tide Saban hasn't fully implemented it yet). As for C), well Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin could go nuts. The problem is that Missouri's defense is decidedly worse than that of Texas Tech, Oklahoma, or Texas.

So there you have it: the rankings of the contenders presuming that everything holds to form. But of course, everything won't hold to form.

Should USC Get To Play For The Title With Their Schedule?

Gerald Ball — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:28:44 -0400

Preface: this article presumes the exceedingly likely scenario that fewer than two teams will finish undefeated and USC and several other teams from the Big 12, Big 10, and SEC conferences will finish with one loss.

If USC were undefeated, I would not say much since no one impresses me other than Texas. (If Penn State beats Ohio State, I will happily acknowledge them. Having had the displeasure of being forced to see John Parker Wilson over and over again on CBS, Jefferson Pilot, and ESPN for the past four years, I will never acknowledge Alabama no matter what their record is. Good kid that John Parker Wilson is but not much of a player.)

But as USC will be only one of several very good one loss teams, why should they get the nod over everyone else?

If things play out as expected, Ohio State will be the only ranked team that USC plays all year. While it is true that USC opponents California, Arizona, Oregon or Notre Dame could put together a run, the truth is that there is little evidence that any of those teams have the talent to accomplish it, especially when you consider that the first three all play each other plus have the rest of the Pac-10 to worry about.

I admit that Oregon, by virtue of having already played USC, has a shot, but the truth is that if things hold to form Ohio State will be USC's only opponent with fewer than three losses.

USC fans will retort that everyone else, especially the SEC, is overrated. I don't have a problem with that.

SEC offenses are dyspeptic, Big 12 defenses are sieves, and the Big 10 has yet to show that it can compete with elite edge talent. But at the end of the day, denigrating other conferences doesn't add a thing to what USC has accomplished when USC's victories are compared with the one loss teams from other conferences.

Let us go back to the overrated SEC. Suppose Florida wins the rest of their games. You can call UGA, LSU, and Alabama frauds until the cows come home. And feel free to ignore that they played Hawai'i, Miami and FSU out of conference to focus instead on Citadel.

Even if it is all true, USC still won't be able to claim that they beat a better group of teams than did Florida. Case in point: the only SEC team to lose to a mid-major this year is 2-4 Mississippi State. The Pac-10 cannot come close to saying the same.

That is just the SEC. Truthfully, there is no objective way of saying that USC would be more deserving of a national title bid than an 11-1 Penn State (especially after you consider what PSU did to Oregon State) or an 11-1 Oklahoma. Am I saying "anybody but USC"? A thousand times no. In the unlikely event that an ACC or Big East team finishes with a single loss, I will not advocate a national title game appearance for them.

Why? Well to be honest, for the same reason that I do not for USC. Should Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Pitt, or South Florida finish 12-1 or 11-1, they will have done so without beating very many superior teams. So why should they be advanced over teams that have?

I am aware that USC's excellence under Pete Carroll that causes us to presume USC's getting the benefit of the doubt for title games. Please understand how ridiculous this is.

Merely because USC is "the team of the decade" (a moniker that LSU, who lest we forget is 4-0 in BCS games including 2-0 in BCS title games, has some right to claim for themselves) does not mean that they are the best team in any given year.

Proof of this: FSU finished in the top five every single year from 1988 to 2003, but actually had a losing record A) to Miami and B) in national title games during that span.

Also, USC is clearly living off the accomplishments of Trojans of the recent past. Well please remember that those accomplishments weren't merely due to the Trojan uniform, but the players and coaches in them.

Those USC teams had Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at QB, Lendale White and Reggie Bush at RB, Dwayne Jarrett, Keary Colbert, Mike Williams, and Steve Smith at WR, and guys like Troy Polamalu, Shaun Cody, Mike Patterson, Darnell Bing, and Lofa Tatupu on defense. (More important, they had Norm Chow, Ed Orgeron and Lane Kiffin as assistants.)

Now maybe the players that USC has now have more natural ability, but they are not as productive, not as consistent, and not as good at stepping up when they really need to, and at least part of it is due to their coaches not using them nearly as well.

That 2005 USC team that nearly won the national title was the first in NCAA history to have a 3,000-yard passer, two 1,000-yard WRs, and two-1000 yard RBs.

By contrast, this year's USC team likely won't have a single RB or WR reach 800 yards. Where LenDale White broke the Southern Cal TD record in only three seasons PLAYING BACKUP, this USC team has combined for only six rushing TDs. And the numbers that Matt Sanchez are on pace for, 2500 yards with 28 TDs and 12 INTs, are nowhere near what Leinart and Palmer put up.

Yes, I am aware that USC is No. 1 in scoring defense. I am equally aware that the next great offensive team that USC plays this year will be the first. USC's great stats on defense haven't exactly come against Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, ok?

At this point, there are several teams with the potential to finish with one loss that have a better claim for a BCS title game spot than does USC. I hope the pollsters remember this.

Tyrone Willingham Shows Why Affirmative Action Does Not Work In Football

Gerald Ball — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:43:14 -0400

In response to Willingham's Scorched Earth.

Tyrone Willingham illustrates the biggest problem with affirmative action in college football: it results in lesser qualified blacks being advanced ahead of more qualified blacks. Were it not for affirmative action and the mentality surrounding it, qualified blacks might have gotten the jobs at Notre Dame, Washington, and Mississippi State instead of people like Tyrone Willingham, Karl Dorrell, Bobby Williams and Sylvester Croom.

The blacks that the affirmative action system generally identifies as future head coaching candidates are generally "company men" like Willingham and Croom; guys that are "resume qualified" (meaning on paper) and have the demeanor and personality that are bland and inoffensive. Well, that describes Joe Bugel. Remember the colossal failure that he was as a head coach? If white coaches that fit this profile never succeed, then black coaches that do will not either.

A successful head coach will either be someone that has an original innovative idea or someone whose driving persona will alienate and threaten people. This actually describes the two most successful black head football coaches: Florida A&M University's Jake Gaither (molded by Woody Hayes, who actually was oddly rather conservative) and Tony Dungy (also oddly somewhat conservative).

Let us take Dungy in particular. The fellow was clearly an innovator and the one who popularized the cover two defense in a league where everyone was trying to emulate the Buddy Ryan/Jimmy Johnson/George Seifert 46 schemes that made players like Deion Sanders and Charles Haley oh so vital to winning a championship.

What was more, Dungy's demeanor, a quiet aloof and uncompromising self-confident intelligence that gave people the creeps. More than a few NFL owners gave Dungy an interview intending to offer him the job, but soon after the interview took on an "anyone but this guy" attitude.

The affirmative action game is all about black men making people like and feel comfortable with them not because of their competence but because of their nonthreatening nature. It is a game that a certain presidential candidate has mastered and successful head football coaches don't play those games.

Why? Because a successful head football coach has to demonstrate that he is better than the guy across from him 75% of the time when the guy across from him is ALSO one of the very best at what he does in the world. The affirmative action game is not about that.

The affirmative action game is about getting the guy that is hiring you to fall so in love with your resume, your recommendations (Bill Walsh effusively praised Willingham), your media status, and "the chance to make history" that they are willing to give you a shot despite knowing full well that you aren't going to be better than 75% of the coaches that you face. Why? Because the basis of being likable and nonthreatening is allowing the guy making the hiring decision to continue to regard himself as your superior. Even if he isn't going to have a brilliant football coach, at least he gets to have an impressive showpiece, a trophy coach if you will, that he can control.

Tony Dungy wouldn't play that game. Dungy refused to hide the fact that he knew more about football than the owners and general managers hiring him and that they would not be able to run the operation behind the scenes. He wouldn't shuck and jive, pick and grin, or slap his knees in the least. So Dungy had to watch the likes of Ray Rhodes and Art Shell get the opportunities instead.

Please recall: Dungy only got a job because everyone else, including not only Jimmy Johnson but also Steve Spurrier, turned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers down, and at a salary that was a fraction of what Johnson and Spurrier received.

The issue is not so much that Tony Dungy may have been discriminated against or that black coaches in general face discrimination. After all, plenty of white head coaches never receive the opportunities that he has had (or for that matter that Tyrone Willingham has squandered).

Discrimination is going to happen in every society and it is not just going to be by race, but by things like class, culture, and who is in what circle of friends and good old boys. By the way, a black man who is not in the right circle will NEVER get a desirable head coaching job at a historically black college, and that is the main reason why no black college has won the I-AA playoffs since 1978.

Instead, when evaluating a black candidate for head coach, unless a president or AD hold them to the same standards as they would a white coach, then that candidate is almost guaranteed to fail. That is why the fellows who always appear on the little list of media tokens, such as that promoted by the Black Coaches Association every year, should generally be avoided.

Guys like that are the ones that have been the longtime assistants, are oh so qualified on paper, are so articulate and well spoken before the media and in interviews, but have no new or original ideas to offer the game and are not particularly driven or bold. Nothing wrong with guys like that, they are great to have—as an ASSISTANT. As a head coach, however, they will produce a winning season or two before everyone figures them out and they ultimately fail.

Again, there are black coaching prospects out there that are very competitive and/or have excellent or innovative approaches to the game. It is a shame that the progress of said coaches is so often impeded by affirmative action candidates whose sole reason for advancement is often their attractively nonthreatening packaging.

The Big 12 Better Than The SEC? Not So Fast ...

Gerald Ball — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:24:25 -0400

If there was a year to challenge the notions of the supremacy of the Southeastern Conference, this would be it.

The Arkansas Razorbacks and the Mississippi State Bulldogs are two of the worst teams in major college football. The Auburn Tigers have no offense and the Tennessee Vols will struggle to become bowl eligible. The Ole Miss Rebels, South Carolina Gamecocks, Kentucky Wildcats, and Vanderbilt Commodores have some merit, but are not as strong as some of the middling teams of recent past that had SEC fans thinking "what if they played in another conference!?"

As for the cream of the crop, the Georgia Bulldogs have yet to prove that they can be great as opposed to merely very good. The Alabama Crimson Tide and LSU Tigers have unreliable quarterbacks. And the Florida Gators alternate between being let down by their offense and their defense.

Incidentally, how has Urban Meyer been in Gainesville four seasons without developing a reliable running game or an every down tailback? As a matter of fact, did Meyer ever have those things in his previous stops?

So I am amenable to the notion that another conference may well be no. 1 this year, and the locus of opinion has focused on the Big XII.

I have one problem with this however—when are they going to prove it by beating someone?

The Texas Longhorns, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Oklahoma Sooners, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Missouri Tigers, and Kansas Jayhawks may be a combined 29-1, but it is for a reason: Only two of the 29 wins have come against teams currently ranked.

One was Oklahoma over the No. 24 TCU Horned Frogs, the other was Missouri over No. 20, the Illinois Fighting Illini. (And yes, the sole loss was Kansas to No. 19, the South Florida Bulls.)

But, I am not accusing the Big XII of cupcake scheduling.

First off, it isn't their fault that some of their early season major conference opponents (i.e. Washington and Arkansas are terrible this year.) Second, people trying to maintain winning programs in places like Lubbock, Texas; Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Lawrence, Kansas, should be allowed to schedule as many cupcakes as they want.

As a matter of fact, I am furious at the Baylor Bears for scheduling a game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and a road game against the UConn Huskies. Had the hapless Bears scheduled a pair of Sun Belt programs instead, they'd be 4-1 with winnable games against Texas A&M and Iowa State to give them shots at bowl eligibility.

But most important, it is not the Big XII contender's fault that their early conference games have come against programs that were very good in the 1990s but have since fallen on hard times.

Back then, a victory against the likes of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Colorado Buffaloes, the Texas A&M Aggies, and the Kansas State Wildcats, would have almost certainly been one over a top 15 opponent. But regrettably for Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech these are merely victories over conference opponents that will be battling each other for bowl eligibility.

This is in contrast with the SEC, which I have already conceded is not playing spectacular football this year...not as good as 2007, 2006, or 2003, at least.

Vanderbilt has beaten No. 20 Auburn. Alabama has beaten No. 10 UGA and previously unbeaten Kentucky. And LSU has beaten No. 20 Auburn, as well.

Now that is just about it, since big non-conference matchups with the Arizona State Sun Devils, the Miami Hurricanes, and the Clemson Tigers proved to be duds, as did the usually significant Florida-Tennessee game.

And yes, erstwhile contender Florida does give a demerit to the SEC for losing to 3-3 Ole Miss, as no Big XII contender has a similar blemish. (Call it the SEC's version of USC losing to the Oregon State Beavers for now.)

Further, it is mostly due to the fact that no Big XII team has played more than a single conference game, every SEC team but Kentucky has played at least two.

Vanderbilt and Alabama have played three, and poor Auburn has played four. Still, the fact remains that where the top SEC teams have, to a slight degree, proven their mettle against top competition, the top Big XII teams have not. And yes, this also means that the Big XII's best have a tad bit more beating each other up to do than the SEC's best.

Be that as it may, style points do count for something, and in that area the Big XII has what the SEC lacks. If the SEC powers were capable of running up the scores that the Big XII powers have been, they should have done so against Miami, Clemson, and Arizona State. As it is Alabama, the SEC's best shot at the title game, couldn't even produce an offensive TD against the TULANE GREEN WAVE.

It is true that four of the Big XII's powers are suspect on defense: Texas Tech (who to be fair claims to be better on defense and deserves a chance to prove it), Oklahoma State, Missouri and Kansas. Then again, as mentioned earlier, if your programs are in Lubbock, Stillwater, and Lawrence, you receive my permission to be suspect on one side of the ball.

And as the failed Sylvester Croom experiment at Mississippi State demonstrates, if you are going to be persistently atrocious in one area, it had better not be offense. (As for Missouri, you have no excuse. Please get better on defense and soon. It is only a matter of hiring an SEC linebacker or secondary coach as your defensive coordinator, which incidentally will also help your recruiting.)

But that still leaves Oklahoma and Texas, both of whom have the talent and coaching (especially now that Texas has the latest product of the Auburn defensive coordinator factory) to be at least as good on defense as LSU, Alabama, UGA, Florida, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt have been on offense to this point.

So while the Big XII may yet be better than the SEC, it still need to prove it in the little over half a season that remains.

Personally, I am pulling for the Big XII, because if they don't outdo the SEC, then it will simply mean that there is no one dominant conference this season, just one or two very good teams from each conference.

Alabama Crushes Georgia—Why Am I Not Surprised?

Gerald Ball — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:51:38 -0400

10-2 last season. Preseason No. 1. Dominated their first three opponents. Home game against a second year coach installing new systems on both sides of the ball (including the third offense in three years), playing a ton of freshmen and sophomores, and went 6-6 last year.

Easy win, right? Wrong.

Do not get me wrong. I expected Georgia to win. But I was not at all surprised when they lost. The reason? A history lesson. A lot of people would like to believe that the 2003 national title race was between LSU, Oklahoma, and USC. Wrong. It was between Nick Saban's LSU and Mark Richt's UGA.

They played two games that season. The first was a regular season matchup in Baton Rouge, and UGA, who went 13-1 the prior season (But 11-2 USC was OBVIOUSLY the best team at the end of the season that year right?) was the favorite.

LSU eked out a tough win thanks to Nick Saban's defensive playcalling rattling QB David Greene—and head coach Mark Richt—and UGA debacles in special teams.

The SEC championship game was the rematch, and again the conventional wisdom backed UGA.

Not only is it very difficult to beat a quality team twice in the same season, but UGA had fixed their kicking game issues, gotten healthier and more experienced on the offensive line, was heading into the matchup full of momentum after victories over hated rivals Auburn and Georgia Tech, and the game was in Atlanta, practically UGA's backyard.

Wrong.

LSU absolutely dominated UGA in one of the most disappointing SEC championship games in the history of the event. (Sure, there have been bigger blowouts, but they were mismatches, not matchups between a pair of national title-worthy teams.)

This is not an anomaly, but rather a pattern. UGA under Richt is considered one of the best teams in the SEC, up there with Florida and LSU. Truthfully, UGA is merely the best of the SEC's second tier, a group that generally includes Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas. UGA is the best of the second tier because they regularly defeat the other second tier teams plus those on the third and fourth rungs.

But they are not first tier, because quite simply they rarely if ever beat the SEC's best, one good enough to finish in the top three or top five. As a matter of fact, their two SEC titles (in 2002 and 2005) came in what were considered down years for the conference.

The LSU team that UGA beat in the SEC title game represents the best that Richt has defeated, and in that game they knocked out LSU's starting QB on the first drive. And please note that UGA went on to be upset by West Virginia in the Sugar Bowl.

Add to this the head to head comparison between Mark Richt and Nick Saban. Richt is in his first coaching job. Saban is in his fourth. Advantage: Saban. Saban has experience as an NFL coordinator and head coach. Richt has neither. Advantage: Saban.

Saban is incontrovertibly a better defensive coordinator than Richt is an offensive coordinator. Not only that, but Saban's offensive coordinators at LSU and Alabama have been more aggressive and innovative than has Richt at either UGA or FSU. Take away the Charlie Ward shotgun years at FSU—which wasn't even Richt's idea—and he merely runs the same pro-style offense that you see practically everywhere else in college football.

That leads into another issue: Saban's schemes better fit his talent than Richt's. Richt's schemes are great with the rare talent that you can get to a powerhouse program in Florida, California, or Texas that has the luxury of having a clear talent edge on everyone else in every game but two, maybe three, a year.

But at a school that will never consistently have elite dropback QBs and pass blocking OLs, playmaking WRs, dominant DLs, or true cover CBs, and is in a conference with five other programs that have comparable or better talent, it is a recipe for frustration.

While Richt is willing to pretend that he is in Tallahassee or Miami (his previous two stops) dominating ACC and Big East lilliputians with quick OLs that can pass block, tall WRs that can run routes and catch, and accurate QBs that can make complex reads, Saban (after trying and failing with a pro style offense at Michigan State) has run simpler offenses that do not require highly skilled talent at LSU and Alabama.

It is not just the offense. Many have wondered why UGA recruits extremely athletic and versatile LBs and safeties only to diminish their effectiveness in a defense that features DLs and CBs.

Again, it works if you are at FSU, Miami, Texas, Florida, or USC where you will almost always have future NFL starters at DL and CB. But as UGA's last No. 1 draft pick at DL was David Pollack in 2005 (and he was drafted as an OLB) and at CB was Champ Bailey in 1999, it would behoove Richt to dump the Miami/FSU defenses and run schemes that let his best athletes make plays.

UGA does not even have to adopt a 3-4 defense, but rather use a 4-3 philosophy that allows the middle of their defense (LBs and safeties) to be the playmakers that the DLs and CBs aren't going to be.

While UGA will win a lot of games while Richt is head coach, they will never be a true national title contender. This is not to say that they won't be very good over a long period of time and wind up having a season where everything goes right for them and they win a title. They just won't be one of the teams that is in the thick of things year after year.

That should be good enough for UGA fans, provided that Richt lives up to his prominently stated evangelical Christian beliefs by recruiting players that generally stay out of trouble and graduate.

(I am serious UGA fans, your program may have never been elite, but it has never been notorious either. If Mark Richt can't win without criminals and people that have no interest in or aptitude for university level work, then UGA needs to hire someone who can. Jim Grobe at Wake Forest: there's a start!)

The bottom line is that as long as Mark Richt is UGA's head coach, never be surprised when he comes up small in games like this, especially when Nick Saban is on the other sideline.

And as a side note: Yes, Georgia should be very concerned with Georgia Tech, who will do a much better job getting the most out of their talent than Richt ever will. And even as the No. 2 school in Georgia basically resigned to players that do not fit in UGA's scheme, there is a lot of said talent to be had.

Has Anyone Noticed OREGON Lately?

Gerald Ball — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:13 -0400

First things first. I am an SEC fan who hates Pac-10 football. With that out of the way, the offense that Oregon has been putting up this season is unreal.

Now understand that this is coming from a person who prefers defensive football. Not much use for the 4-3 and hate the 4-6. But the 3-4, 3-3-5, and 4-2-5? Now that is football.

I must ask: why don't more teams run a 3-4, 3-3-5, or 4-2-5? The first two are greatly suited to defending the spread option teams like Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Florida, Penn State, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, West Virginia, and OREGON.

The NT and MLB/ILBs overwhelm the interior blocking (never a strength for spread teams) and the extra edge players can get to the edges, cut off lanes, and fill the gaps.

Meanwhile, the latter two are excellent for defending spread passing games like Purdue, Auburn, and half the Big 12 (Kansas, Missouri, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Colorado, Oklahoma State).

Why? You replace a front-seven player with a defensive back, the rover. If the QB is a scrambler, you spy him with the rover. If he isn't, you alternate between blitzing the rover and dropping him back in coverage.

Basically, if offenses aren't going to use true fullbacks and TEs and are going to abandon having physical guards and centers, MAKE THEM PAY FOR IT!

Of course, most college football programs don't run these spread offenses, you might rejoinder. Well, these defenses are quite good against conventional offenses, too, and even more so because offenses will rarely see them.

In any event, we are talking about a Pac-10 team here, so all discussions of defense have to stop. (To think that in the early 90s, there were not only the Desert Swarm defense at Arizona and excellent Don James defenses at Washington.)

I was willing to be deluded by USC and UCLA for awhile, but after BYU (59 points in 2 1/2 quarters!) and Jacquizz Rodgers, please.

But sadly, there seem to be no great defenses this year. Several good ones, but none like the dominating ones like LSU in 2003, the smothering ones like Florida in 2006, or the opportunistic ones like Virginia Tech in 2004, or the absurd quasi-NFL ones of Miami from 2001-2004.

So I must acknowledge excellence wherever it occurs, and right now the Oregon offense is excellent. 32, 32, 44, 63, and 66 points!

Now I am aware that the Big 12 offenses are putting up similar numbers. But has any team in the Big 12 done it against two conference foes (Washington State and Washington) and in two tough nonconference matchups (Purdue and Boise)?

And even more impressively: Oregon is doing it with like their fourth- and fifth-string quarterbacks. How many QBs does Oregon have? Where do they find these QBs? And if they are all that good, why don't they transfer for playing time elsewhere?

Actually, if Oregon is going to win big with this offense, they really do need to restrict their recruiting to the types of dual-threat QBs that make this offense special.

Dropback passers, even those who can scramble, just can't cut it against fast defenses in offenses that require the option.

I still remember Oregon QB Kellen Clemens' response to the woofing of USC's defensive players about since they completely shut down Oregon's very similar offense that they would be able to defend Texas.

Clemens' response: "I AM NOT VINCE YOUNG."

Oregon doesn't need Tim Tebows, Vince Youngs, or Terrelle Pryors, but there are plenty of guys almost as good (guys who can get to the edge on the run/pitch option plays and get upfield on scrambles) willing to come to Eugene.

The thing is that if Oregon keeps rolling up points like this, they are going to HAVE to start making headway in recruiting. They would become the place to go of choice for players that USC aren't really interested in.

If they were running the same scheme as USC, that would be a problem, but since their scheme is different, then it would be enough to make them a contender in the Pac-10 and nationally.

On offense, that is. There is still the little matter of defense. Of course, Oregon could do what worked well for Nebraska all those years: take the guys that won't get playing time at RB and QB and move them to linebacker and safety.

(Incidentally, that is another advantage of recruiting dual-threat QBs rather than dropback passers who can run a little.)

A wealth of linebackers and safeties equals personnel for the 3-4 or 3-3-5 defenses! Imagine all of the blitzes and coverages to mix up Steve "I am just as good as Norm Chow...or then again, maybe not!" Sarkisian offenses.

But for that, Oregon would need to care about their defense to hire an elite coordinator. But since this is the Pac-10, we know that it isn't going to happen.

Why Don't Ohio State, Jim Tressel Bashers Trash USC and Pete Carroll?

Gerald Ball — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:10:25 -0400

When I wrote the editorial "Quit Bashing Ohio State! Four Reasons to Believe in Jim Tressel, Buckeyes," I got mostly grief for it. Well, I stand by my comments.

Do any of you stand by your trashing Ohio State the past year? Or this talk about how Ohio State needs to be banned from the national title game? Or how the SEC is overrated because they have "only" been beating Ohio State in the national title game? Please.

A lot of the same people that have been trashing Ohio State the past two years are now mapping a path for USC to get into the national title game. It is disgusting and unfair.

Look, people. Ohio State and USC have practically the same record since 2005. In 2005, USC had one loss and Ohio State had two. Both of them had last minute losses to Texas.

Ohio State had a very close loss (the game turned on one play) to a one-loss Penn State team that probably would have beaten USC, and Ohio State then went on to blow out the Notre Dame team that USC needed luck and accommodating officials (and questionable Charlie Weis game managing in the fourth quarter) in a bowl game.

In 2006, USC lost to No. 24 Oregon State and unranked 6-6 UCLA. Meanwhile, Ohio State lost only to No. 1 Florida. In 2007, an Ohio State team that was supposed to be REBUILDING lost only to No. 1 LSU and No. 15 Illinois. Meanwhile, USC lost to Oregon and STANFORD.

Add it all up, and all Ohio State has been doing is losing to teams that they were supposed to: teams that probably—and in USC's case, definitely—had superior talent, especially at the critical positions.

The only time that Ohio State has been upset in the 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 seasons was against No. 15 Illinois, a team with which it matches up poorly. Illinois is constructed like an SEC or particularly Big 12 team rather than a Big Ten one.

The only things holding Illinois back are 1) Juice Williams' inability to throw the ball consistently, and 2) Ron Zook's refusal to relinquish control of his defense. Where the former will no longer be a problem after next season, the latter was what got Zook fired at Florida.

While the Illinois game was an upset, it definitely was not a bad loss.

Meanwhile, USC, with its boatload of five-star recruits, high school All-Americans, and future NFL starters, loses (or is severely tested by) teams stocked with far lesser athletes that are struggling for bowl eligibility.

It is not just the losses to Oregon State teams that have been blown out by Penn State, Boise, and Cincinnati. It was the two close calls to Washington, both of which involved questionable late officiating decisions that benefited USC. It was the fact that the loss to Stanford in 2007 came after Stanford was up 21-3 at halftime a few years ago.

It was how they didn't pull away from 3-8 Arizona in 2005 until five minutes remained in the fourth quarter in 2005, and their needing a monster game from Reggie Bush to pull away from 8-4 mid-major Fresno State that same year.

Now Georgia beats their first two opponents 45-21 and 56-17 and drops from No. 1 to No. 3 in the polls. But when USC labored to beat Fresno, the media talked about how good FRESNO was! Some national magazines actually claimed that in the good old pre-BCS days, Fresno State would have gone to the Orange or Sugar Bowl.

This really does have to stop. Ohio State's Jim Tressel deserves CREDIT for winning all these games the past few years with offensive skill players that USC wouldn't give a second look at.

Troy Smith was an undersized troublemaker who couldn't throw the ball in high school and received only a few scholarship offers from major schools—who wanted him as a backup DB or WR—and Tressel's system turns the guy into a record-setting Heisman Trophy-winning QB.

Last season, coaching a new (and pedestrian) QB Todd Boeckman and a bunch of yeomen WRs (Brian Hartline, Terry Robiskie, and Brian Small are NOT first round draft picks, unlike Ted Ginn Jr., Santonio Holmes, and Anthony Gonzalez, who played with Troy Smith), the guy goes 11-1 and makes the BCS title game.

Who was Ohio State's starting TB with Troy Smith, including in the 2006 title game? Antonio Pittman, who was cut by the team that drafted him and now is like fourth string for the Rams.

Yet it is Tressel that gets trashed.

Meanwhile, Pete Carroll has not only five-star recruits, but in many cases the consensus top recruit in America at his position or overall—guys like Ronald Johnson, Mark Sanchez (and John David Booty before him), Vidal Hazelton, David Ausberry, Stafon Johnson, etc., etc., etc.

How on earth does USC have 10 high school All-American tailbacks and get held to 10 points by a UCLA defense that FSU ran up and down the field on in the very next game? How does USC get shut out in the first half by a team that Penn State was leading 35-0 at halftime?

How does Jacquizz Rodgers rush for 186 yards against "Pete Carroll's best-ever defense" WHEN STANFORD HELD HIM TO 54?

How come Pete Carroll is never asked these questions? Is it because they beat 10-3 Michigan in the Rose Bowl in 2003 to give him one more national title than Tressel has?

Well, let me tell you—had the media not been so smitten with that 2003 USC team (which by the way, not only lost to but was thoroughly outplayed by an 8-6 Cal team that hadn't even settled on a starting QB at the time—Aaron Rodgers was sharing time with Reggie Robertson) that they saw fit to award them a national title over a team that had more wins and against a tougher schedule (you can argue with me but not the BCS formula, which judged both LSU and Oklahoma to have played a tougher schedule) that they awarded Carroll and USC an AP title, then there would be nothing that Tressel has that Carroll lacks.

Even Carroll's seven Pac-10 titles, Tressel's mastery of the Big Ten has been similar, and this is with Tressel having to face another elite program in his conference in Michigan.

Yet where Carroll's domination of the Pac-10 is proof of his and USC's brilliance, Tressel doing the same to his conference (which not only includes Michigan but also a Penn State team that is very good when they run an offense that fits their talent, and a Wisconsin team that not long ago was hammering the Pac-10 champions in Rose Bowls) is evidence that the Big Ten is the worst conference in college football and whose champion should be banned from the title game even if they are undefeated and everyone else has a loss.

I really don't blame the media for this. The media is always going to be biased towards 1) West Coast schools, 2) private schools, and 3) schools that feature the passing game.

No, this is on the fans who just accept this "USC is obviously the best team in college football, even when they play like dirt and especially when they lose" nonsense, and who accuse anyone who challenges them of being biased and not giving USC enough credit, especially if it is an SEC fan.

This is not to be mistaken as so much of a defense of Tressel. I found Tressel's benching of the five-year senior who took his team to the Big Ten title and the championship game last season for a true freshman who put the whole college football world through a self-serving dog and pony show during the recruitment process disgusting.

Yes, Boeckman needed a strong running game to be able to effectively run his offense. If Tressel wanted something different, he should change his offense so that he can recruit different QBs (remember, Brady Quinn chose Notre Dame over Ohio State almost solely because of Tyrone Willingham's pro style offense).

Better yet, he should have got on the phone and recruited Jacquizz Rodgers, who appears to have chosen Oregon State over powerhouses Arizona, Baylor, Kansas State, Louisiana Tech, SMU, and Houston.

But wait—it appears that ILLINOIS recruited the kid as well! Now you see why Illinois is giving Ohio State so much trouble...they are recruiting the types of ATHLETES that Tressel seems not to know that he needs.

Tressel probably was among the many who backed off Rodgers because he was only 180 pounds soaking wet and carrying lead in his pockets. Never mind the fact that THE KID SCORED 52 TOUCHDOWNS AS A JUNIOR IN TEXAS 4A BALL!

I forgot, I am supposed to be DEFENDING Jim Tressel, not bashing him. I can do that by comparing him to Pete Carroll once again. After all, Pete Carroll didn't recruit Jacquizz Rodgers either, despite the fact that Rodgers is a four-star recruit from Texas whose skill set, according to the recruiting services, was very similar to that of Reggie Bush.

So where Tressel ignored a highly recruited player who didn't fit his system, Carroll ignored a highly recruited player who not only did, but unlike Ronald Johnson, apparently also has the ability to hold on to the football.

After this weekend, when the polls come out, USC will not drop very far (they will almost certainly be ahead of not only Ohio State but also every other one-loss team, including the loser of the SEC top 10 showdown between UGA and Alabama, and also Virginia Tech who is undefeated since switching QBs, and will probably even be ranked higher than undefeated UConn, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and South Florida, you East Coast bias hypocrites), and the media will start charting their path to the title game.

Even if the title game is between two undefeated teams, the media will claim that we need a playoff, because why should USC not have a shot at the title just because they stumbled? After all, they only lost by six points, and you know how tough road games are in the Pac-10.

Look at how they destroyed Ohio State. They destroyed Virginia and Notre Dame too...it isn't their fault that Virginia and Notre Dame are mediocre...those are traditionally strong programs! And is there a better coach in college football in Pete Carroll?

In other words, it's the same excuse that they make for USC every year, and the same excuses that they made for FSU throughout the 1990s (except that at least in the case of FSU they were losing to top 10 Florida and Miami teams instead of Stanford and Oregon State).

The fans will go for it, just like they always do, when the truth is that Tressel does as well or better than Carroll with lesser players on offense—and so do not a few other coaches for that matter.

Enough is enough. If you are not going to criticize Pete Carroll, USC, and the Pac-10, then be silent against Tressel, Ohio State, and the Big Ten.

Quit Bashing Ohio State! Four Reasons to Believe in Jim Tressel, Buckeyes

Gerald Ball — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:42:25 -0400

Right now, everyone wants to take Jim Tressel and the Ohio State Buckeyes and throw them away because of their recent poor performances in big games. These criticisms are simply unfair.

1. The USC, Florida, and LSU teams that beat Ohio State did so because they not only had better players, but the superior athletes were at the very positions that give Ohio State the most trouble.

USC, Florida, and LSU weren't 30 points better than Ohio State (who, let us remind you, had to play two of those three games without their best offensive players—Ted Ginn Jr. against Florida and Beanie Wells against USC) in terms of overall talent, but their ability to exploit Ohio State's weaknesses resulted in Ohio State getting smothered.

For example, suppose a team has a great QB and WRs and an opportunistic defense, but a suspect running game and offensive line. That team will cruise right along, piling up points on offense and getting sacks and turnovers on defense, looking like a team for the ages—until, that is, they play a team with five future NFL draft picks in its front seven!

Eight sacks and three INTs later, the same head coach that is a genius for revolutionizing the college game with his spread the field with three and four WRs offense, and who has NFL owners and general managers offering him piles of money, is an idiot who can't coach.

The people criticizing Ohio State right now very likely root for teams who also would stand no chance against a national title contender whose scheme and best athletes exploit the limitations of your scheme and best athletes.

2. Pardon me, but who else was going to play in these games? Are we criticizing Ohio State for playing USC on the road?

(Please recall that the year Ohio State won a national title, they demolished Pac-10 champions Washington State on the road. A lot of folks want to pretend that Carson Palmer's USC won the Pac-10 that year, but it ain't true. WSU got the privilege of getting crushed by Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl that year, while USC got to play Iowa, remember?)

Somehow I missed YOUR PROGRAM'S offer to fill that spot on USC's home schedule.

As for their playing in the national title games: Who else was supposed to go? In both 2005 and 2006, Ohio State was No. 1 by virtue of having the best record in college football.

And why did they have the best record? Simple: The very same Ohio State scheme that made them look VERY BAD in losses against Florida, LSU, and USC is what keeps them from losing to teams like 6-6 UCLA and 4-7 Stanford.

Yes, that was aimed at the not few people whose true ire at Ohio State is due to their conviction that the Buckeyes kept USC from putting the SEC in their place in those games.

The very same thing that makes Ohio State reliable and dependable against mediocre teams is what makes them vulnerable against teams that emphasize a more aggressive—and risky—style. It is a tradeoff.

If you are a Midwestern program that can't count on the edge talent (QBs, WRs, LBs, DBs) that schools in California, Texas, and Florida get just by keeping their own players at home, your best bet is to build a system that allows you to win nine or 10 games a year with players in your own region, and that allows you to steal a player or three from another region.

Terrelle Pryor is at Ohio State instead of Texas because he saw Troy Smith win a Heisman and get drafted at Ohio State. That wouldn't have happened had Ohio State lost to Northwestern and Purdue that season.

3. Compare the grief that Ohio State is getting now to the teflon that Bobby Bowden and FSU got during their run. FSU lost three of their four title game appearances, including embarrassing losses to Florida (52-20) and Oklahoma (13-2, and it wasn't that close).

This was with Bobby Bowden's long history of losses to Miami, usually because a coach who owed his success to the passing game and taking big risks all of a sudden fell in love with running up the middle and playing for field goals.

We also don't like to talk about media favorite Steve Spurrier's record in big games that don't involve Phillip Fulmer, or how the media has at one point or another manufactured stars out of people like Jeff Tedford, Mike Bellotti, Charlie Weis, Joe Tiller, Bob Toledo, Mike Leach, Terry and Tommy Bowden, and Rick Neuheisel.

Many of those guys have gotten fired—or settled into mediocrity—without nearly as much criticism as Tressel has received for losing only to 12-0 Texas, 11-1 Penn State, 12-1 Florida, 11-2 LSU, 9-3 Illinois, and now No. 1 USC since 2004.

4. Claims that Ohio State plays a weak schedule are giggle-inducing. The only conference whose non-league schedules do not include three games against mid-major and I-AA teams is the Pac-10.

The Big East does it. The ACC does it. The SEC does it. The Big 12 does it.

And with all respect due to the Pac-10, a fat lot of good it has done them, hasn't it? Seriously, where has this policy of scheduling tough non-league games gotten the other nine teams in this conference, who aren't within shouting distance of USC or any other national contender, including Ohio State?

As far as the Big Ten being so bad...compared to whom? What great things have the Big East, ACC, Big 12, or the little nine of the Pac-10 done the past six years against either USC or the SEC champs?

West Virginia beat UGA in the Sugar Bowl! Well, here's a great big pat on the back. Texas beat USC for the title! Well, you take a pat on the back PLUS a cookie.

Did either WVU or Texas maintain that elite status? No! Has anybody else even done what they did? That's what I thought.

What is going on is that the media is turning people against Ohio State, clearly one of the top four programs of the decade (behind USC and LSU, but right there with Oklahoma), because the media hates Ohio State's run-oriented offense.

Can a program that doesn't have direct access to the best players in Florida, Texas, and California OR warm weather that allows them to recruit nationally actually win anything with a pro-style offense? If so, we haven't seen it.

OK, forget the pro-style offense. Let's talk about the spread passing offenses, where you don't really need the prototypical pro-style QBs, WRs, or OLs.

Can you win a national title with the types of offenses that you see or have seen at Oregon State, Arizona, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Arizona State, Cal, Baylor, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Missouri, Colorado, Louisville, Cincinnati, Purdue, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Michigan State, and now Auburn?

The truth is that this offense has produced five national titles: BYU (1983), Miami (under Dennis Erickson in 1989 and 1991), Florida (1996), and Oklahoma (2000).

As BYU is obviously irrelevant, and we have already established that you will never get the QBs and WRs to Ohio State that Miami and Florida will get...I think that Tressel is looking at what Bob Stoops accomplished with Josh Heupel, Nate Hybl, and Jason White with the spread and considers himself just about even.

This is especially true when you consider that Oklahoma has changed offenses some four times since that 2000 title. Some of it was due to former offensive coordinators Mike Leach, Mark Mangino, Chuck Long, and Kevin Sumlin becoming head coaches elsewhere, but a lot of it was in fact due to Bob Stoops feeling that his offense let him down against great defenses.

What about the spread or read option, you say? My reply: What about it?

Ohio State ran some of it with Craig Krenzel and won a national title in 2002. Ohio State ran it even more with Troy Smith in 2005 and came within two plays (against 12-0 Texas and 11-1 Penn State) of playing for the title that year—and they still won a BCS bowl.

And precisely what offense do you believe that Tressel recruited Terrelle Pryor to run? Ohio State actually recruited one of the top QBs in the Southeast to run that offense—Antonio Henton in 2005—but it turned out that Tressel didn't like Henton's passing ability or decision-making, and he gave the job to Boeckman instead.

(My opinion: This was a mistake not dissimilar to Tressel's initially favoring Steve Bellisari over Craig Krenzel and then Justin Zwick over Troy Smith. Tressel tends not to realize that in his system a scattershot athletic QB will take him a lot further than a pedestrian dropback passer, even one that can scramble a bit like Boeckman. Troy Smith won big games in Tressel's offense back when he was barely a 50 percent passer.)

This is not to say that Tressel should necessarily discriminate against dropback QBs that can make plays. If the next Mark Sanchez wants to come to Ohio State, recruit and play him.

But Tressel should realize that if the QB isn't the next Mark Sanchez, then he won't have the pass-blocking offensive linemen, tailbacks that can pick up blitzes and catch passes, tall WRs that run routes, or fast TEs with good hands that it requires to make him look good.

Without those players around the QB, what you get is Todd Boeckman, Justin Zwick, and Steve Bellisari. Better yet, even WITH those players you get John David Booty, who despite West Coast and media hallucinations never got USC any closer to winning a national title than Boeckman did.

If John David Booty couldn't handle UCLA's defense in 2006 (which was mostly DeWayne Walker's scheme), then how would he have handled Florida's defense (which was Charley Strong's scheme AND several future NFL starters)?

A lot of Tressel bashers have forgotten the guy that he replaced: John Cooper. Cooper was a former Pac-10 guy (Arizona State) who spent YEARS trying to build Ohio State into what USC is now, or for that matter what FSU and Miami were.

What did he find out?

That Bobby Hoying was as good as it got for QBs that he could get to Columbus. That his WRs were either tall fast guys that couldn't catch or short fast guys that couldn't run routes, and his TEs were plodding run blockers.

He found out that his OLs weren't fast, quick, or agile enough to set up either those ridiculous passing lanes or those seams for USC's tailbacks to get huge plays on receptions and screens, and even if he did, his tailbacks weren't versatile enough to take advantage of it.

Result: Not only did Cooper not build Ohio State into a Midwestern pro-style dynasty—he couldn't even beat Michigan! So he was fired and replaced with a coach who could not only beat Michigan, but also virtually everybody else.

I put Tressel in the same category as Mack Brown and Tom Osborne from the last decade: guys who do nothing but win, yet the media turns everyone against them because they don't like the way that they win.

Instead, the media proclaims everybody who can produce a seven-win season throwing the ball 50 times a game to be the next coaching genius that will revolutionize the game, only to see that guy either get fired four years later, or still winning seven games a season 10 years later.

No disrespect to guys who get fired, or even more so, to guys that can maintain a winning program: It is just appalling how the media will proclaim their greatness while belittling people that win, and win big.

The reality is that Tressel is in this for the long haul. There won't be a loaded USC or an angry SEC team waiting in the title game every single year. Coaches head for the NFL or lose their edge, teams go on probation—everything goes in cycles.

In 2010, Pete Carroll could be head coach/GM of the Lions, and the SEC gauntlet of Meyer, Spurrier, Richt, Saban, Tuberville, Fulmer, Nutt, and Petrino may have become impossible to navigate, etc.

Tressel could then find himself in the national title game against an Oklahoma or Texas (or a Missouri, Kansas, Oregon, South Florida, or Virginia Tech) with junior Heisman Trophy winner Terrelle Pryor under center.

Who would be favored to win that game? Tressel already knows the answer, and that's why he isn't changing a thing—nor should he.

Where's the Media Outrage About USC Leapfrogging Georgia in AP Standings?

Gerald Ball — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:33:15 -0400

As you can see, USC has leapfrogged UGA in the coaches' poll despite both teams winning. Now, according to the history that I brought up in this article on BCS controversies, such a crime against not only college football, but decency itself should not be countenanced!

If Texas (a more talented and incontrovertibly better team) leapfrogging California and getting the Rose Bowl was such an evil occurrence, why is it OK for USC to leapfrog Georgia?

The circumstances were similar: Texas won their last game that year in a rout while California barely beat a mediocre Southern Miss team (and they were not mediocre because USM is a small college team—actually USM was mediocre even by mid-major standards that season. They didn't win their conference and they lost their bowl game). But the national media to this day regards Cal's being leapfrogged by a team with the same record after winning as some great injustice and horror.

LSU-USC in 2003? Similar story. Members of the media called LSU's championship a cruel joke, a sham, a fraud, etc. and that would forever have an asterisk beside it. (I am actually restating what people, especially nationally syndicated columnist Jim Litke of the AP, wrote.)

Why? Because the system had the nerve to leapfrog the team with the better record against the tougher schedule (again, which was why LSU was in the title game to begin with) ahead of USC, correctly deciding that beating the BCS No. 2 in Oklahoma was more impressive than beating a 10-3 Michigan.

I also remember 2004. When Auburn briefly tied Oklahoma during that season after Oklahoma's terrible pass defense was exposed, Bob Stoops went to the media proclaiming that it was not only unjust, but a MEDIA CONSPIRACY.

Never mind the fact that if there was such a conspiracy, it would be in favor of HIS TEAM, because ESPN/ABC, the primary opinion maker of such matters, has the contract for the Big 12 games where CBS, virtually powerless to influence college football writers, carries SEC games.

But it had its desired effect, pollsters were convinced to ignore the fact that Oklahoma had only beaten one ranked team all season and that their secondary was a sieve after their only good DB was injured.

Result? Matt Leinart looked almost as good against that same Oklahoma secondary as Texas A&M's Reggie McNeal, now playing for the Toronto Argonauts after an attempt by the Jets to turn him into a wide receiver failed, did. For that matter, Leinart looked almost as good against that Oklahoma secondary as Oklahoma State, coached by future LSU coach Les Miles, did.

Am I saying that Matt Leinart's great performance against Oklahoma's secondary was no big accomplishment? Well, no. I am just saying that the media thought that it would have been SUCH A CRIME to objectively look at the data and subjectively look at their secondary get SHREDDED by the QB impersonators at Texas A&M and Oklahoma State and leapfrog the team with the No. 1 scoring defense in the NCAA over them?

Oh well, seeing USC leapfrog UGA in the polls, I guess not. Keep in mind: I fully support USC being ranked No. 1, see this article written the very day that USC crushed Virginia, who went 9 - 4 last season, on their home field.

What I am pointing out is the hypocrisy of members of the media that whine and cry when their favorite teams get leapfrogged or left out only to later say "the system worked!" when it happens to teams that they could care less about, which in this instance is every team in the SEC save maybe Florida.

Pac-10 Has Won 10 of 16 Matchups Against SEC!

Gerald Ball — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:25:37 -0400

I am an SEC guy. I dislike the Pac-10 and in particular loathe Rick Neuheisel, who stands for everything that I disdain about that conference. (Except for the fact that Neuheisel CHEATS...like it or not, the Pac-10 is generally a clean conference.)

But I have to admit, last night when I saw Rick Neuheisel yelling and screaming on the sideline while Philip Fulmer was, well, being Philip Fulmer, I knew that the Vols were in trouble. Sure enough, the Vols went down in overtime despite four INTs and a huge edge in talent and experience.

What does this mean? Despite the common claims to SEC supremacy—the woofing by people like me—the Pac-10 is actually 10-6 in their last 16 matchups against the SEC.

More important, take away USC, and the Pac-10 is still 6-6. More important still, take away LSU, clearly the best SEC team of the decade and at worst in a tie with Oklahoma and Ohio State for the second best team overall, and the SEC is only 2-10 against the Pac-10.

Unlike USC, where three of their four games against SEC competition were blowouts, LSU got away from Oregon State and Arizona State by the skin of their teeth.

Now you have Tennessee dropping two in a row to the Pac-10. Granted, these are not as good as the Fulmer teams of the 1990s, but Fulmer still has a national title ring and leads one of the SEC's elite programs.

Face it folks: The team that destroyed 10-2 UGA was themselves dealt a double digit loss by 7-6 Cal, and now a team that is expected to finish no worse than fifth in the 12-team SEC loses to a team that is expected to finish no better than eighth in the 10-team Pac-10.

So, my fellow SEC fans...what is going on?

Now of course, it goes without saying that the SEC is a better conference than the Pac-10. Check the titles. Look at the NFL draft picks. But why is that not reflected in head to head matchups?

Last but not least: I am not saying that Tennessee has to fire Phillip Fulmer. The reason is that I am not certain that Fulmer's replacement would do as well.

Tennessee has to survive with mostly out of state recruiting in a division where Florida and Georgia can build top five programs just by keeping nearly everybody at home (and in a conference where Alabama and LSU can do the same).

But Fulmer honestly does need to make changes in his program, starting with his offensive scheme. This is not to say that Tennessee should run the veer, but Fulmer will never be Pete Carroll.

Fulmer needs to quit recruiting the West Coast passers (most of whom aren't even that good, i.e. the Clausens and Erik Ainge) and trying and failing with the pro-style passing game and go back to SEC football, which should start and finish with power running out of the I-formation with vertical passing coming off play action.

Now this isn't Pat Dye and Vince Dooley in the 1970s with their three yards and a cloud of dust, but if Alabama, TENNESSSEE, and Auburn teams led by Jay Barker, Tee Martin, and Jason Campbell were able to go 39-0 by remaining mostly true to SEC football, there is no reason for Fulmer to deviate from it.

As a matter of fact, I bet you will see Mark Richt finally abandon his fantasies of turning UGA into Miami or FSU and start running Knowshon Moreno and Caleb King when it counts this year.

Tennessee should keep Fulmer if he is willing to take the Vols back to SEC football, but if he isn't, they need to get rid of him and go hire someone who will. Having a sophomore throw 41 times in his first big road game when you could have just gone out and dominated a lesser talented team up front on both sides of the ball and worn them down in the second half is precisely what I am talking about.

Hardesty and Foster aren't Jamal Lewis and Travis Henry, but they were more than good enough to run all over Karl Dorrell's recruits.

I still say that the SEC is No. 1, but they need to prove it against the Pac-10. Suddenly that UGA game against Arizona State isn't looking so easy...

After Week One, USC Should Be Ranked No. 1

Gerald Ball — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:18:14 -0400

I hate to admit it, but it is true. USC demolished a Virginia team that went 9-4 last season, 52-7.

Sanchez will never live up to his high school billing, but I still believe that A) he will be the Trojans' next No. 1 draft pick at QB and B) Pete Carroll cost himself a national title by choosing John David Booty, the latest in a long line of frauds from Louisiana's Evangel Prep, over him.

I honestly think USC will make the title game this year and win it.

As for the team that is ranked No. 1 ... their victory over I-AA Georgia Southern wasn't even as impressive as Georgia Tech's victory over I-AA Jacksonville State, not to mention South Carolina's victory over NC State and Alabama's victory over Clemson.

Seriously, UGA is going to have to start playing a lot better to finish higher than third in the SEC. Playing like this, I am not certain that UGA will beat Arizona State without the sort of dogfight that Oregon State and ASU subjected LSU to.

This is relevant because LSU's losing to Tennessee was a direct result of ASU's pushing them in the prior game.

Then there is Florida. Wow.

1. Tim Tebow is an upperclassman.

2. Urban Meyer may have a tailback for the first time in his tenure at Florida. (C. J. Spiller, who ditched UF to go to Clemson at the last minute ... hey, how's that decision looking right now?)

3. Florida may actually have a DEFENSE this year.

The SEC media picked UF to beat UGA this year for a reason. 56-10 over Hawai'i may have showed you why. However, that accomplishment still is nowhere near as impressive as USC's performance over a major college team with a longtime winning tradition.

Seriously, I have much more respect for what USC did to UVa than I do for anything that they ever accomplished against Arkansas, which is the toughest recruiting situation in the SEC (yes, even tougher than Vanderbilt and Mississippi State).

Utah over Michigan

This is the result of Rich Rod's foolish decision to put all his eggs in the Terrelle Pryor basket. Rich Rod will have his running QB in place next season, but he will still be a true freshman.

By the time Rich Rod has an experienced QB for his offense, Terrelle Pryor will be for Ohio State what Tim Tebow is for Florida right now. Great decision, Rich Rod.

Maybe now Rich Rod is going to learn that he isn't recruiting two- and three- star guys lucky for the opportunity to play major college football at outposts like Tulane, Clemson, and West Virginia anymore, and will quickly adapt to going after kids who can have their pick of schools.

Alabama over Clemson

Tommy Bowden comes up small again. Big surprise there. It really is time for this program to go in a new direction.

Clemson can accomplish more than merely being a winning program...based on their tradition and facilities they really ought to be competing for the ACC title year in and out, especially with programs like FSU, Miami, and Georgia Tech being not what they were in the 90s.

It is disgusting that the likes of Virginia Tech, Boston College, and West Virginia have surpassed Clemson in terms of programs on the east coast when Clemson once used to compete on an equal footing with the best of the SEC.

If it wasn't for Bowden's last name he would have been gone a long time ago, and Clemson needs to stop practicing legacy preferences.

Missouri over Illinois

This was the biggest game of the weekend, as both teams will be competing for an at-large BCS bid.

Now Illinois fans are seeing why Ron Zook was fired TWICE at Florida (first as defensive coordinator after the Nebraska national title game debacle, then as head coach): the guy is an AWFUL defensive coordinator. Simply AWFUL.

He has been able to put up good performances against Ohio State the past couple of seasons, thanks to understanding that speed and athleticism on the edges gives Ohio State fits—a fact which Ohio State has attempted to address incidentally by recruiting more athletic offensive tackles.

Zook will never win more than eight or nine games a year at Illinois until he sacrifices his pride and allows his defensive coordinator to do his job, which he refused to allow Charles Strong to do at Florida.

The SEC fan and PAC-10 basher did notice Cal's holding on for a hard-fought and important win against a Michigan State program that will do pretty well for itself until coach Mark Dantonio heads for greener pastures. Good for Cal and the PAC-10.

However, even in victory, Cal revealed the biggest problem for the Little Nine of the PAC-10: their inability or unwillingness to play defense.

So for right now, no matter what the polls say, USC is No. 1 and everyone else is chasing them. And since USC-Ohio State is by far the biggest matchup of the early season (and possibly the season itself), if USC beats OSU at home as expected, it will remain that way for quite awhile.

And yes, UGA fans, if USC beats OSU or even if OSU beats USC, they SHOULD leapfrog you.

By the way: Mitch Mustain, it looks like you DID go to USC to sit on the bench after all. Should have stayed the big fish in the small pond, kid! At Arkansas, you would have developed into an NFL draft pick.

At USC, meanwhile, the only way you will ever start a single game is if Sanchez gets hurt. Now Damian Williams, on the other hand, seems to have actually made the right decision ...

Why USC Is Overrated (But Alas, Still the Best)

Gerald Ball — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:28:27 -0400

In response to "Are the USC Trojans Overrated?"

Time for an SEC fan and despiser of Western football and the passing game to put the USC Trojans in their place.

And what place is that? Number one!

The USC Trojans were clearly the top program in college football from 2002-2007. Even better (or from my perspective, worse), were they to fall off a bit and go 8-4 two seasons in a row, they would still almost certainly be the top team from 2002-2009.

This can be quickly established by throwing out all of the subjective considerations (national titles, polls, bowl berths, NFL draft picks) and looking at the numbers: USC is the only team not to lose more than two games in a season in that span. Adding only a bit of subjectivity to it, USC has also won six of seven BCS bowl games.

That means that USC has had at least two games against the BCS top 15 every season and can credibly claim to have beaten their best or toughest opponent each year save 2005.

The natural rejoinder for an SEC fan such as myself would be to say that these accomplishments are diminished because they came in a weak conference. Setting aside direct SEC-Pac-10 comparisons for now, I have to say that claiming that the Pac-10 was weaker than the ACC and Big East from 2002 to 2007 is not credible.

The Big Ten and the Big 12 have a stronger cases against the Pac-10 than the ACC or Big East, but they are at best inconclusive and in many measures favor the Pac-10. In the worst scenario for the Pac-10, either the Big Ten or the Big 12 was better, but not both.

This means that the worst that can be said about USC is that they compiled the best record of success in the third best conference. When you combine their seven BCS games with the fact that they do not play I-AA or Sun Belt teams out of conference, then it is impossible even for an SEC fan to attribute their success to scheduling.

Now to deal directly with the SEC. Let us pretend that USC took the place of any of the top three SEC teams during this time period: LSU, UGA, or Auburn.

Would USC have the same record while playing Florida, Tennessee, the other top two teams, and the SEC championship game? No. Claiming otherwise dismisses the accomplishments of those very strong teams in much the same manner that USC partisans claim—not entirely without justification—that SEC fans do.

For instance, SEC fans certainly know that USC beat Auburn 23-0 in 2003. But USC fans seem not to know—or care—that LSU and UGA beat Auburn 31-7 and 26-7, respectively, that same year. If USC blowing out Auburn made them a great team in 2003, then what about LSU and UGA doing the same AND THEN PLAYING EACH OTHER TWICE?

But SEC fans, we should not get ahead of ourselves. LSU, UGA, or Auburn would not have had the same record against USC's schedule.

Why not? Because during this time period, USC had Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, John David Booty, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, Mike Williams, Dwayne Jarrett, Steve Smith, Keary Colbert, Fred Davis, and Dominique Byrd.

Some of those guys (Palmer and Davis) only had one great season during the run, while others (Booty, Byrd) were clearly products of the players around them. Still, there have been stretches during this time when the QB, WR, and RB play at the top SEC schools ranged from average to brutal.

Case in point: Florida winning the SEC and national title without a tailback. As much as that speaks to the great coaching ability of Urban Meyer and staff, you really would rather not see that happen—just as you would really rather not see UGA so often be at or near the top of the SEC with their always mediocre WRs.

Regarding USC versus the SEC, it's difficult to claim that you are better when the next guy consistently has better players. Remember, this is coming from an SEC guy who loathes the passing game.

We have gone through the ways that USC is not overrated. How, then, are they overrated?

1. Being the best team from 2002-2007 does not equal being the best team in every single season. Why should USC refrain from claiming that they would have beaten Ohio State in 2002, LSU in 2003, Auburn in 2004, Florida in 2006, and LSU in 2007?

Simple: Texas in 2005. Take away 2005, and Mack Brown has never so much as won a conference title—yet in that one season, his team was better than USC and everybody else.

2. USC's run is not unprecedented. This is the answer to "the best team ever" nonsense. As a matter of fact, Florida accomplished almost as much during the '90s. FSU accomplished as much during that same time period. Nebraska, meanwhile, incontrovertibly accomplished more, as did Miami, in the 1980s.

Right now, USC is at best tied for third with FSU. Even winning another national title would at best tie the Trojans for second with Nebraska behind Miami from 1984 to 1992.

Keep this in mind: SEC fans revile Miami and FSU as much as they do USC, if not more. We merely respect them a bit more because A) they play each other every year, in addition to FSU also playing Florida and Miami playing Florida often, including this year, and B) their players tend to do better in the pros.

3. The media effect.

A) USC is a private school with a nationally known academic reputation in a major city. That means it is the type of school that the opinion makers at ESPN, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, etc. attended, the people in their social/workplace circles attended, or they will send their kids to. This also describes the institutions that USC often plays, i.e. UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Washington, Notre Dame, and Michigan.

National media members generally do not go to schools like Auburn, LSU, Nebraska, or West Virginia, or to any school that they typically play. Neither do their friends and neighbors, and they certainly don't send their kids there. That colors the coverage that these respective schools receive: a lot - and uniformly positive - for USC and similar, while very little - and at times negative or backhanded compliments - for schools in what the media considers flyover country.

B) Most members of the national media grew up in and attended college in areas of the country where college football is not that big. As a result, they are much bigger fans of the pro game than the college one and have little knowledge of why the college game is different from the pro game, or the desire to learn.

Because USC, FSU, Miami, etc. run offenses that are more similar to NFL offenses, the media presume them to be better. (It also helps that the passing game makes football easier to follow. Let's face it: The media is often going to better relate to the QB than a tailback or safety, so teams that build their program around the QB are always going to get more media attention.)

Add A and B together, and the result is that a 10-2 USC is not only going to get more exposure and be presumed to be BETTER than not only a 10-2 West Virginia, but even a 12-0 West Virginia in the eyes of the media.

First, even if this were GENERALLY the case, it would still not necessarily be true in any given year. Once again, see the "Mack Brown won the only conference title in his career the year his Longhorns beat USC for the national title" example.

Second, even the evidence that this is GENERALLY the case is lacking. Contrary to popular belief, passing offenses do not dominate the national title picture. As a matter of fact, the only programs to win national titles with a pro style offense this decade are Oklahoma, Miami, and USC. Ohio State, LSU, Texas, and Meyer's Florida did not win titles with pro style or passing offenses.

I suppose that you can claim the late '90s until the early part of this decade for the passing game, as Steve Spurrier's Florida, FSU, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Miami, Michigan, and USC got it done during that time period. But even during the time of passing game dominance, LSU, Ohio State, and Nebraska won titles.

At best, the battle between the passing game and the option/run-oriented offenses is a wash. That means Miami, FSU, USC, and Florida (under Spurrier) won all those national titles because they had better players, not because of what they ran on offense.

The evidence: Despite all those years of running the passing game, all the Pac-9 (Pac-10 sans USC) has to show for it is two national titles, the last of those coming in 1991. This means that a talented run- or defense-oriented team certainly can defeat a similarly talented pass-oriented team.

USC fans have their own losses at the hands of Kansas State in 2002 and Texas in 2005 as evidence of this, as do Florida, Tennessee, and UGA fans their bowl game debacles to Nebraska and West Virginia.

Losses to option teams by SEC pro style or passing teams constitute three of the SEC's four BCS game losses (the fourth to Miami) and their only two losses in games with national title implications since UGA lost to Penn State in the early 1980s.

In the final analysis, USC is overrated: never as good as they are made out to be, but still No. 1.

For now.

Why Georgia Tech's Option Offense Will Work Part 2

Gerald Ball — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:51:18 -0400

The reason why people claim that Georgia Tech's option attack won't work in major college football is that they have no real football knowledge. The reason for the success of the offense is NOT the option.

What is it? The running game.

The bread and butter of an option offense is a diverse, complex, and effective running attack.

Still, even with the near ubiquity of the spread and west coast offenses, some programs—most notably Auburn and Wisconsin—were very successful the past few years by primarily running the football and doing just enough passing to get by.

What types of running attacks am I talking about? It consists of straight handoffs, draws, sweeps, counters, treys, and traps out of different formations with different personnel groupings. If you had watched Big 10, SEC, or even NFC East football in the 80s and 90s, you would have seen a lot of that.

Regrettably, since then, even with teams that rely on the run, have made their rushing attacks much simpler with fewer plays and formations. This also includes some of the newer flavors of the option i.e. the freeze, read, and spread. But the wishbone, flexbone, I - bone, and veer will retain it.

Diverse running attacks have always worked, especially on the college level. Why? Because the only way to stop it is with superior personnel.

It is not a matter of "knowing what they are going to do, but still not being able to stop it" per se, although if you do have superior run-blocking offensive linemen and talented tailbacks—which again, option offenses will recruit and coach by definition—it will be difficult for defenders to stop. Instead, it really is not knowing WHICH of a ton of possible running plays that you are going to have to stop. The idea that pass - oriented teams have these telephone book - thick playbooks and option teams run high school offenses that basically only run the same 8 or 9 plays over and over again is a myth. Tom Osborne's playbook at Nebraska was HUGE (as was Ralph Friedgen's option offense that won a national title at Georgia Tech in 1990) while Jimmy Johnson's playbook at Oklahoma State and Miami was slender. (Even his Dallas Cowboys offense was one of the simplest in the NFL. Johnson believed in talent and execution, not complexity.) The media just made sure that you never heard about it.

And that brings us back to why the claims of the option being outdated are ridiculous. For teams that rely on the run game, especially on the college level, there are only 5-10 consequential passing plays on offense per contest.

Now in the 70s and 80s, many allegedly pro-style programs honestly didn't throw the ball more than 15 times a game. In recent years they throw it a little more, of course, but it is still vanilla, and any effectiveness that the passing game is going to have is based on the fact that the defense is primarily concerned with the run.

For that reason, guys like Jay Barker, Brian Griese, Craig Krenzel, Matt Mauck, and Matt Flynn on recent Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, and LSU national teams really didn't have to do much.

So all the option has to do is replace a passing game that does not contribute to the team's success —as was the case in whoever was the quarterback for those Ron Dayne Rose Bowl teams for Wisconsin—with the option element. In both cases—whether you are defending a pro-style offense that relies on the run or an option offense—the core job of the defense is going to be the same: defending the runs that will make up the bulk of the play calls on offense.

If you have potential NFL players at both defensive tackle spots and at one linebacker position (preferably middle linebacker) and can shut this down by playing defense like you normally do, you are in good shape.

But if you are like the 90 percent of college football programs that ARE NOT farm teams for the NFL, you are going to have to either take extra measures to stop a robust running attack or get flattened. Thus, the very same element that opens up play action or the deep ball in the nominal pro-style offenses will allow a team to run the option.

If anything, the option gives you more to defend than the vanilla passing game, because with the latter the QB will only have two or three places where he throw the football. Meanwhile an option QB can pitch it to one of two backs or take off himself, and moreover the option can either attack the interior (the pitch lanes remain between the tackles) or attack the edges (despite what is commonly believed, in the better option attacks the option rarely attacks the edges or calls for the QB to run it himself; a good option attack will have the QB creating running lanes for his tailbacks between the tackles).

And don't forget that most option attacks do in fact throw the football. It works pretty well because defenses are so concerned with stopping the basic run and the option that effectively defending the pass is a pipe dream.

This problem is usually solved for them because option offenses generally have bad passers and worse WRs. However, more and more true dual threat QBs that can both run the option and pass are produced by high schools each year, and any Division I-A program in a BCS conference can recruit good enough WRs to get by (despite what is commonly portrayed not every Division I-A football prospect believes himself to have a shot at the NFL; more than a few are actually looking to find a situation where they will get an education and playing time).

Unfortunately, Paul Johnson's version of the option is one of the least conducive towards any real success passing the ball. However, Johnson will almost certainly adapt it to take advantage of running QBs with real passing ability, which are the sort that Georgia Tech has successfully recruited ever since winning a national title with the dual threat Shawn Jones in 1990. (Incidentally, Georgia Tech also signed Charlie Ward, but he did not academically qualify and ultimately wound up at FSU.)

Is that enough to beat a loaded defense like Miami in the 1980s, FSU in the 1990s, or LSU this decade? That isn't the point, really, because no one else beats those defenses either. If you have seven future NFL players on your defense, you aren't just going to stop the option; you are going to stop EVERYBODY.

Case in point: when USC beat Auburn in 2003 and Virginia Tech in 2004, they actually didn't do a whole lot on offense. Forcing turnovers and big plays on special teams set up most of their points. Had either Auburn and Virginia Tech held onto the football and contained Reggie Bush on kickoff and punt returns, both teams would have held mighty USC under 14 points.

We already know that Paul Johnson has the coaching angle covered. As for the players: well there are tons of great option QBs, RBs, and run blocking offensive linemen produced by high school football in Georgia and all over the southeast. Not only will Johnson do just fine, but within five years he will have spawned several imitators.

BCS Controversies Revisited: Much Ado About Nothing

Gerald Ball — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:48:13 -0400

The media has for well over a decade tried to gin up as much discontent as possible over the bowl system in order to apply pressure on the NCAA and university presidents to institute a I-A playoff.

I will not debate the merits of the playoff itself other than to say that as a person who attended a I-AA school, a I-A playoff would not be NEARLY as much fun OR settle as many controversies as everyone thinks.

But instead, I wish to make the case that the media-contrived "controversies" over the BCS are usually tempests in a teapot, especially when one considers that the media hue and cry is nowhere near as strong when a team that the media likes and respects comes home with the title (i.e. FSU, Florida, Miami, USC, Oklahoma) as it is when a team that the media loathes does (Nebraska, Ohio State, LSU) or for that matter DOESN'T (Auburn).

So let us go back and revisit some of the bigger media-generated outrages.

1. 2004: USC - Oklahoma - Auburn.

As an SEC fan, let me say that a fair-minded person can oppose a title game matchup between two undefeated teams that started out ranked in the top 5 due to not only one winning the AP title and the other coming within three points of winning the BCS title the previous year, but being the two best programs of the early part of the decade.

SOMEONE had to be left out, so the decision that was made was defensible. What was indefensible was the media hypocrisy.

A. The media totally rejected the arguments that they had used in the past to advance alleged "BCS victims" in the past, including USC the prior year.

B. The media refused to acknowledge that it was the changes to the BCS formula that they demanded after the exclusion of USC in 2003 and Oregon in 2001 were what kept Auburn from leapfrogging Oklahoma. And no, the media did not demand changes to the BCS system on Auburn's behalf. Why? Because a system that keeps teams that the media doesn't give two cents about - teams like Auburn - out of the title picture whenever it is possible was precisely the result that the media was aiming for to begin with.

C. The same media that declared USC's having to share the title with LSU the prior year to be some sort of crime against human decency stated that Auburn should be perfectly fine with their undefeated season, Sugar Bowl title, and No. 2 ranking. After all, THEY ARE JUST AUBURN SO WHO CARES? And where USC and Oregon fans were revolutionaries challenging an unjust system, Auburn was declared to be "whiners."

Final analysis: the 2004 mess was not due to the BCS, but rather the media's shameful hypocrisy.

2. 2003: Oklahoma - USC - LSU

Playoff proponents are hypocrites in claiming that you should have to win your conference in order to compete for the national title because every sport that has a playoff, including I-AA football and the Division I basketball tournament, allows at - large entries.

The notion that Oklahoma should be punished for losing later than USC is credible, but that was accounted for in the polls, where Oklahoma did drop below a USC team that actually had a slightly worse record (same number of losses, but Oklahoma had more wins by virtue of playing in a conference title game).

However, the BCS formula appropriately did not allow the time of the loss to completely cancel out other factors, such as the fact that Oklahoma lost to a much stronger team than did USC (8-6 Cal!) and that Oklahoma incontrovertibly played a tougher schedule.

Seriously, what evidence do we have that USC would have beaten Kansas State had they played, as a lesser KSU team beat USC the prior year? A lot of people have forgotten that had star KSU QB Ell Roberson (who shredded USC's defense the prior season IN LA, a preview of the trouble that USC defenses would later have with Vince Young and Dennis Dixon) not gotten injured early that season, causing TWO Kansas State losses, the national title game would have been between LSU and Kansas State to begin with.

As far as the great crime of LSU jumping USC in the final poll: the only crime was the media's pretending that it was somehow unprecedented. The truth is that teams leapfrog each other when they both win—or both lose—ALL THE TIME.

Did the media complain in 1993, for instance, when Nebraska fell in the polls after a close conference road win where they had to start a third string walk-on at QB? Now in what fantasy land was USC's beating 10-3 Michigan more impressive than LSU's beating Oklahoma, the BCS No. 2? LSU had the better record (again, playing an extra game due to the conference title game) and played a more formidable foe (this isn't about USC being better than Oklahoma, just that Oklahoma would have obviously and easily beaten any team quarterbacked by John Navarre) in the bowl game. REFUSING to move LSU up merely because USC was initially ranked higher is what would have been unfair.

So, there should have been no controversy whatsoever over the shared title. Or more accurately, if ANYONE had the right to complain, it would have been LSU for being forced to share the title with USC. Why? Because even before the title game LSU had played a much tougher schedule, including but not limited to Eli Manning's Ole Miss and two games against 11 win UGA. LSU had to share their title with a team that not only played fewer games, but played them against what the BCS formula held to be clearly weaker opposition (and again not only weaker than LSU's but also weaker than the Oklahoma team that LSU beat). Now this does not mean that LSU fans should begrudge USC their AP title, but instead merely illustrates the whole media harping over "the corrupt BCS system prevented coaches from voting for who they really thought was best!" nonsense was precisely that, as was their attempt to humiliate LSU and denigrate their accomplishments by trying to convince coaches to either vote for USC as #1 in the final poll or leave the spot blank (fortunately only a few coaches, obviously those who do not believe that they themselves will ever win a BCS championship game and benefit from the same arrangement, were classless enough to follow the media's commands).

That's right...the strength of schedule component was the reason why BOTH Oklahoma AND LSU leapfrogged USC despite USC being No. 1 in both polls, and that was why the media demanded that the strength of schedule component be eliminated: it will generally work against the PAC-10 conference (that is until the PAC-10 conference actually goes out and gets better).

3. 2001: Oregon - Nebraska

See the same argument advanced in 2 ... Nebraska was appropriately punished by the BCS system for losing later than Oregon by dropping behind Oregon in the polls (again despite having more wins and the same number of losses than Oregon), and was appropriately rewarded the spot in the title game based on their superiority in other factors, including the fact that Nebraska's losing to Colorado in the Big 12 title game is much more forgivable than was Oregon's losing to Stanford.

Seriously Oregon fans, who was the best team you beat that year? Your nonconference schedule included a bunch of losing and mid-major teams, and what did any other team in the PAC - 10 accomplish during the regular season or in any bowl games that year? News flash: before Pete Carroll, your conference just wasn't that good (last national title: Washington in 1991 and before that USC in 1978). That meant that Oregon would have had to go undefeated to have any shot at the national title game just like that Jake Plummer Arizona State team did (and by the way that ASU team actually beat somebody that year ... defending national champs Nebraska).

And Oregon fans, while your defeating Colorado in the BCS game was, er, nice, please recall that Colorado lost to mid-major Colorado State, was blown out by Texas, and was playing a backup QB who could not run the option portion of their offense.

4. 2004: Cal - Texas.

Galling that the media championed this issue while telling Auburn to drop dead. Even more galling that the AP used this incident to withdraw from the BCS formula, hoping to force a playoff.

More galling still that PAC-10 fans accused Mack Brown of whining when it was the PAC-10 that stole an at-large BCS bid from more deserving Virginia Tech—whose only loss was on the road at Miami in a game where Michael Vick was injured—by threatening to withdraw from the BCS unless a PAC - 10 team got an automatic bid instead.

Be that as it may, another instance of media hypocrisy. The media was more than willing to justify excluding Auburn in favor of Oklahoma and USC based on the latter two program's longer recent history of success and (allegedly) having much more talent.

Well, where California had gone 8-6 the prior year and was generally horrible for years before (a 6-6 season under Steve Mariucci was as good as it had gotten) Texas had been winning 9, 10, 11, etc. games a season ever since Mack Brown had first arrived.

Anyone who claims that Cal was the more talented team—or that Vince Young would have done anything other than roll up 500 yards of total offense against Cal's "defense"—would be ridiculous.

The media's claim that the incontrovertibly by any measure lesser talented team led by the incontrovertibly by any measure lesser accomplished coach should have gotten the Rose Bowl berth over a team that was clearly superior in every conceivable way boiled down to two arguments: 1) whenever possible a Big 10/PAC-10 matchup should be preserved for the Rose Bowl and 2) we just like Tedford and Cal BETTER than Brown and Texas.

This decision was not merely validated in hindsight (i.e. Texas winning the Rose Bowl and the national title the next year as compared to Cal's losing the Holiday Bowl and not doing squat worth mentioning since) but was obviously the right one to begin with.

5. 2000: FSU - Washington - Miami.

Yes, 11-1 Miami beat 11-1 FSU. But 11-1 Washington also beat 11-1 Miami. And 11-1 Arizona beat 11-1 Washington. So who else were you going to pick other than the defending national champions, and why?

6. 1998: Kansas State.

While I have great sympathy for the Michael Bishop team that gave us a hint of the spread option era to come for finishing in the top 5 and being exiled to the Alamo Bowl, the truth is that under the old bowl system KSU wouldn't have gone to a major bowl game either.

But what happened to KSU, who went from being one play against Texas A&M from being in a national title game in which they would have been heavily favored to going to a third-tier bowl game, should illustrate how ridiculous the people who claim that Oregon and Cal should have received at large bowl bids are by comparison.

7. 2005: Oregon - Notre Dame.

Yes, Oregon had a better record than Notre Dame. But similar to Oregon in 2001 ... who was the best team you beat that year? Oregon didn't even play 10-3 UCLA with their one of the worst in NCAA history rushing defense that season.

And yes, the BCS was obligated to consider the fact that Oregon lost their starting QB and would have had no chance against top competition (as was proven in the Holiday Bowl against 8-4 Oklahoma).

The purpose of the BCS was to pick the strongest teams to produce the best matchups for the viewers, advertisers, and paying customers, not reward Oregon for a great season.

And incidentally, Oregon's going would have allowed 11-2 LSU, a much more talented and accomplished team, to cry foul. Bottom line: 10 and 11 win teams worthy of at large BCS bids get left out every year.

There is no reason to make it into this big controversy just because it happened to a team that the media likes. Mack Brown has had 14 teams to finish with nine or more wins, including his last 12 teams in a row, and in all that time has only received ONE at-large major bowl bid. Which one was it? See #4, 2004: Cal-Texas.

8. 2006: Michigan - Florida.

Michigan fans, please understand that not a single postseason system in memory would have given you a rematch. The old system: you go to the Rose Bowl to play USC. The Bowl Alliance: you go to the Rose Bowl to play USC.

And yes, the original BCS formula with margin of victory and strength of schedule component: you go to the Rose Bowl to play USC. Also, the idea that you should get two bites at the apple with no one else getting a shot is ridiculous.

What if you had beaten Ohio State in the rematch, especially in a close game...do you then share the title? Or go best two out of three? And by the way, your defense's inability to cover a team with a sophisticated offenses—as your three losses in a row to Ohio State, USC, and Appalachian State demonstrated—means that you wouldn't have gone anywhere in a playoff either.

Your first-round matchup would have likely been against LSU with No. 1 pick in the draft QB JaMarcus Russell and No. 1 picks WR Dwayne Bowe and WR Craig Davis and third rounder WR Early Doucet (the guy who made Ohio State's secondary look slow and clueless on that TD catch and run in the national title game) and boy would that have been fun! For LSU, that is. For you ... not so much.

9. 2006: Wisconsin.

I know, you finished 10-1. But seriously, who was the best team that you beat that year BEFORE the bowl game? No, under the old system you would not have gotten an at-large bid to a major bowl game.

No, the third place team in the Big 10 would not have made a playoff unless the field was 16 teams. Your argument is no better than the many worthy teams that miss out on BCS spots each year.

10. The ACC and Big East never receiving an at-large BCS bid.

8-5 Pitt in 2004 and 8-5 FSU in 2005 got automatic BCS berths by virtue of winning their conference and—surprise surprise—went on to lose the bowl games. I say we call it even. What about you?

11. 9-3 Illinois getting an at-large bid last year.

OK, and who else should have gone? With 10 spots for the BCS and the rules limiting it to two teams per conference, you are going to see teams worse than Illinois—which had a ton of talent and also beat No. 2 Ohio State—make it in the future.

That is really about it. Apart from what happened to Kansas State (which has been remedied I might add with the automatic qualifier rule), no one can honestly claim to have been harmed or robbed by the BCS. (OK, MAYBE Kansas can claim to have been more deserving to face Ohio State in the 2007 title game than LSU based on having fewer losses and the same number of wins. But as Kansas fans are not complaining and no one in the media is advocating their case, it does not qualify as a controversy.)

Quite the contrary, the BCS has given major bowl bids and title shots to programs that would have had no chance at either otherwise.

It has also given teams that would have gone nowhere in a playoff (which are a lot tougher than you think ... playoffs reward teams with the most depth, the best run games and defenses, and make the fewest mistakes, not the team that scores the most points, gets the most exposure, or has star players, and also it would result in the same teams going year after year, which would cause those teams to absolutely clean up in recruiting and give no one else a chance) reasons to smile and feel very good about themselves!

So while the BCS isn't perfect, please stop criticizing it based on the demagoguery of ESPN, USA Today, and the rest of the national media.