PAC 10 Threatens to Secede.

In a bit of an odd statement the Pac 10 Commissioner said that if the other BCS conferences continue to push for a plus 1 playoff format, then his conference will drop out of the BCS. All hail the might Pac 10.

I'm not sure what this statement was supposed to bring about. Everyone already knew that the Big 10 and the Pac 10 were not in favor of the Plus 1 format. In fact both conferences would rather go back to playing in Rose Bowl and have nothing else to do with the BCS. Again I'm not really sure why. Maybe its because I grew up in SEC country and don't understand the significance of the Rose Bowl. I mean don't get me wrong its a great game, and the Pac 10 vs Big 10 is cool, but I fail to see how it is more relevant than the Sugar Bowl or any other large bowl.

Let's see big game in a large stadium, with over priced tickets, so the average fan can't afford to go...actually I have seen that before.

After the what the crap did he just say factor wears off you realize that the Pac 10 Commissoner either suffers from serious delusions of granduer or he's just running off at the mouth trying to use scare tactics to get his way. Its kind of like the little kid who gets mad when they don't get to be on best team, so they just take their ball and go home. Of course the statements made by the Pac 10 make it sound like the Big 10 is on board with all this, but with the talk of adding a 12th team and a championship game I hate to be the one to break it to the Pac 10, but their only ally in this might be the Big East and they certainly aren't going to opt out of the BCS pay day.






On behalf of the Confederacy I am happy to welcome California and the Pac 10.






At the end of the day there really isn't anything to any of this. If the Pac 10 pulled a southern confederacy move and seceded from the BCS union you'd have a lot of confused rednecks unsure of how they feel about California, and an opening for a BCS bowl. I'm sure the bowl comittees in Atlanta, Dallas, and Orlando would be crying if their bowls got added to the big boy rotation. Plus with the exception of USC what has college football really lost without the Pac 10? I think the Pac 10 and the Rose Bowl would be the ones to find themselves irrelevant and begging to get back into the BCS.

Richt gets political.

Georgia Coach Mark Richt went on record today during the final day of SEC Media Days and, made a statement that will no doubt shock the Conservative Republicans who make up a large part of the Bulldog Nation.






"It's time to bring our boys home."







Richt in a move that certainly goes against the party line of supporting the President and the established traditions associated with the Event Formerly Known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. This is certainly the first time that anyone directly associated with the program has even hinted that the traditional location of Jacksonville, Florida may not be as neutral as it once was. Particularly for the boys in red and black.

Oh you thought I was talking GW? Nah, I was talking about good ole MF.











Now I'm no fool. I am well aware that the reason the game has never been moved out of Jacksonville, except for the 2 years when Alltell was being renovated is, because both schools make a lot of money off the game under the current agreement. The WLOCP is a nationally telivised game every year. Not just because its two of the better teams in the SEC going head to head, but also because of the "event" the game has become. Much like practially no university president or AD will come out in favor of a playoff system, because of a fear of losing money. Neither of the schools involved in the WLOCP have ever made more than a "yeah thats something to consider" comment about moving the game out of fear of it just becoming another college game. There is also the argument that the "old money" alums are all in South Georgia and can't make the drive to Athens for a normal game. Which is a bunch of BS. If they are "old money" enough that they can afford to get tickets to what is one of if not the hardest ticket to come by every year, then they can afford a hotel room and probably a private jet to Athens for 6 or 7 Saturday's a year. Besides its not exactly a secret that there are a lot more UGA Alumi in the Atlanta area than scattered around the farms and small towns in South Georgia.

Of course the article from the AJC is just a few lines of Q and A. There may very well be nothing to the comment. The question before this may have set it up, so that Richt was speaking about a completely hypothetical situation, but for the Head Ball Coach to come out and say we should consider moving the game to Atlanta as another "neutral" site I believe it really says a lot. Maybe the coaches and hopefully the administration are starting to see that there is nothing neutral about a game played less than an hour and half from Gainesville. Say what you want about tickets being divided or the "event". There is a lot to be said for being able to sleep in your own bed and go through your basic normal game day vs having to do everything on the road. Its time that the Cocktail Party became a truly neutral event again.

Poor poor Tubby.

Poor poor Tubby. I was torn last week when the announcement came out that Tubby Smith had accepted the head coaching job at Minnesota. Ending what had been 10 years of being not quiet good enough (or maybe it was white enough) for Kentucky fans. When Tubby decided to leave UGA for Kentucky I couldn't really fault him. Afterall UGA is a football school. I'm not sure that anything will ever change that, but had he stayed at UGA and continued winning at the level he was going. They would be naming buildings after him by now.

In Kentucky he took one of the top jobs in the country. There are not many schools that have the passion and tradition of Kentucky Basketball. However, no matter how well Tubby's teams did they never lived up to Ketucky expectations, which are always nothing short of National Championship. So, Kentucky has managed to run off one of the classiest coaches in the game, because he couldn't win enough. What Kentucky doesn't seem to realize is they no longer have the invincible aura that once surrounded the program. I remember the days when playing Kentucky for anyone else in the SEC was a guranteed L. You just hoped to keep it close and be competitive so that you didn't get embarassed. What Kentucky fans don't realize is the SEC today is not what it was in the 80's or even the 90's. The SEC is now a power conference in basketball as well as football. The defending national champs hail from the SEC and are playing in the Final Four this weekend. Kentucky is no longer the only team in the SEC and never will be again. You can expect Florida, LSU, and it appears UT to be annual threats for not only the SEC, but National Championships. Kentucky fans much like Alabama fans in the past still live the glory of yesterday. The days of one or two programs dominating any sport are gone. Now there will be up and down years for every program. Unfortunately for Tubby the fans in Kentucky just don't understand that.

So here's hoping that Tubby finds success at Minnesota and is able to thumb his nose at all those Wildcat fans who said he wasn't good enough the only way a classy guy like Tubby can. By winning.

Burrrr! Don't forget about DST!

2007 The Year of Gay Photos

Okay, you do it once and I'm willing to overlook it as just something that only warped individuals like myself would pick up on, but you do it twice and it starts to be a trend.
Only 2 days after the longing passionate embrace pick of Tony Dungy and on Peyton Manning, in which Petyon looks to be waiting axiously for Dungy to plant a wet one on him, the wonderful people at CNNSI.com have given us another gem.

I'm not sure if that face is supposed to excite or strike fear into whomever he's apparently yelling at, but to me it looks more like he was in mid yell when someone suddenly jammed something up his back side. I know that getting a picture at a sporting event can be difficult, with everything in constant motion, but come on. This is the best somebody at SI had to offer? What were you drinking so much that you realized at the last minute you had to get a photo to justify your tickets and expense report? I'm not fan of the NBA or Steve Nash, but the guy deserves better than this. Nobody deserves to be immortalized on the internet for a pose like that.

As if anybody needs another reason to hate the Vols.

Its not like most people, epescially me needs another reason to hate the Vols, but now their coaches have taken to taking cheap shots at guys on the side lines. A video review of the UGA vs UT game clearly shows that Roderick Moore, UT’s associate strength and conditioning coach delivered a nice shoulder charge to Tre Battle at the end of a play. The Knoxville News Sentinel even has a video clip of the play. Of course all the offical responses in Knoxville claim the hit was accidental as if Coach Moore suddenly forgot he was at a football game and didn't notice the guy in the bright red jersey and helmet running down the sideline. UGA's offical response is of no complaint that stuff like that happens, but really what else do you expect from Richt its not like he can do anything about it if the SEC and UT won't.

Coach Moore shows another unsuspecting DB who's the man.

It's not really like anyone has ever accussed Tennessee of running a classy program with young men who are great examples to the youth in the community. In fact the off field antics of the UT program are legendary, but when it comes to the coaches you don't generally expect the thugish behavior to be shown on the sideline. Woody Hayes was fired for hitting a player and there are plenty of people who like to talk about how hickish and trashy Ohio State is, but at least they followed through and fired the greatest coach in their school's history. At UT its apparently perfectly acceptable to strike an opposing player as long as you don't acknowledge him and just claim you never saw the player running down the sideline.

Living Up to the Stereotype

All I can say is LOL. A friend of mine routinely makes the comment that social and racial stereotypes exist for a reason. That reason is that somewhere down the line the associated behavior has proven to be true more times than not, and while it may not be fair to classify a whole group by the action of a few it's hard not to sometimes. That would be the case of the brawl Saturday night between the "U" and FIU. As if its not bad enough that the fight is a huge embarrassment to both football programs and universities the comments made by former Miami player Lamar Thomas are the icing on the cake. The only thing Miami players could've done to reinforce the already well established stereotype of a thug school would've been to flash a few gang signs during the brawl and mug a few of the fans in the stands or stop the team bus on the way back to the dorms to knock off a liquor store before hitting the showers. The only funny thing is that when my Dad saw the fight during highlights while watching the Florida Auburn game he said that anywhere else that would be a disgrace, but at Miami the fans are probably proud. Little did we know that as the fight was going on Thomas was cheering on his boyz from Thug U as they brawled with FIU even insinuating that the fight was not only a positive thing, but just what you should expect when playing football vs Miami.

I've always been a bit of a Larry Coker fan, but if you need any more evidence that he has lost control of his team, then look no further than what happened Saturday night. At most schools that would've been the nail in the coffin for a coach already on one of the hottest seats in the country. Of course we are talking about the U here, and with great Alumnus like Michael "coke head" Irvin and Thomas a fight like that could be just the thing to get Coker one more year.