MIchigan Faces Must Win Tuesday Against Spartans, Plus CFB News

I'm not a big fan of the term "must win." It's way overused in the sports world. It's almost as bad as using coaching "genius," but tonight is a "must win" for the Wolverines.

In fact, all of the games for the rest of the year are "must wins" for Michigan, if they any have hopes of breaking their NCAA tournament drought.

The remaining schedule looks like this: MSU tonight, at Northwestern, Minnesota, at Iowa, and finishing the year at home against Purdue.

Michigan needs 20+ wins to be in the conversation of the NCAA. Let's hope the "moral" victory against No. 1 UConn can help propel the Wolverines to a late in the season win streak.

Being Lane Kiffin

So, you get fired from the Oakland Raiders for basically not communicating with the 200-year-old owner, you land on your feet by getting a high profile college gig at Tennessee, you hire your father as defensive coordinator, you tell a five-star QB "thanks but no thanks," you steal a high-profile Florida WR from the Gators on signing day, you call out the National Champions' head coach by saying he "cheated" when he really didn't, you get reprimanded by the SEC for making those comments, and now this...

Tennessee notified the NCAA it found a Southeastern Conference coach committing recruiting violations—the Volunteers' own Lane Kiffin.

In letters to the NCAA and SEC, the Tennessee athletic department said the secondary violations occurred in January. One violation occurred when nine prospects on an official visit to the school participated in a mock press conference at Neyland Stadium's media center.

Another violation occurred when a fog machine was used as a recruit entered the field at Neyland Stadium during his official visit on Jan. 9.

A fog machine and a pretend press conference? Are you kidding me? Were the business school and law schools closed? Did the library get flooded? I guess Coach Kiffin needs gimmicks to sell recruits on the University of Tennessee—which is sad, and sends the wrong message to 18-year-old kids.

BTW: Kiffin joked he got 39 out of 40 on his NCAA recruiting test? I'm guessing he might need to retake it!

Coach, you just got hired on Dec. 1. What is going to happen when they start playing games?

Does anyone want to coach at Louisville?

I wrote an entire post on the coaching turnover at Louisville recently. It's been downright crazy. They have pretty much replaced their entire staff in less than a year, with only offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm staying on board. Until yesterday, of course, when head coach Steve Kragthorpe let Jeff go. This program is in complete disarray.

State's turn to schedule a Div. I-AA School

Montana State will play Michigan State in its season opener in 2009—traveling to East Lansing, Michigan for the Sep. 5 game.