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February 2008
It’s Free-Wheeling Friday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re going to start a new tradition here on the old college football blog. On “Free-wheeling Friday” we just might talk about anything. And you do the same. If you want to step outside the world of college football, feel free. Just don’t wander too far away.
Today, for example, there are three things that I really wonder about:
1. Can Terrelle Pryor possibly be that good? The young man from Jeannette, Pa., is making his victory tour around schools that are still vying for his services. He is showing up at college basketball games where the crowds are going absolutely nuts and chanting his name.
I’m not trying to be an old fogey here but, having raised a teenager, I have to ask: Can that kind of adoration possibly be healthy for somebody who is 18 years old? And how will Mr. Jeannette react the first time that same crowd turns on him when he makes a mistake in a big game? In other words, if you crank up the hype machine to this kind of level, can you possibly live up to it?
All I know is that Jimmy Clausen, last year’s golden child in recruiting, showed up to make his announcement (that he was going to Notre Dame) in a stretch limo. Unless Clausen wins a national championship, that will be the lasting image people have of him.
2. Can coaches be objective when it comes to discipline? I wrote yesterday about how difficult it is to handle bad behavior by college athletes, particularly when the law is violated. One of the inherent problems is that the head coach has a conflict of interest in this area. He is in charge of disciplining the student athletes in his program, but at the same time he has a huge financial stake in keeping these men on the field. Back in the old days when coaches were not multi-millionaires, it was a little easier to stand on principle.
Some schools have kicked around the idea of taking discipline out of the hands of head coaches when the rule of law is involved. If a guy misses curfew, doesn’t go to class or misses practices, that’s up to the coach. He would be in charge of everything football related. If the police get involved, then the university takes over. Coaches would not like that because they are, my nature, control freaks. But it may be necessary.
3. Does Les Miles know that he is making a bad situation worse? First there were media reports that LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux would not take part in spring practice because of his most recent suspension. Then the school comes back and says “not so fast, my friend. That story is not true.” So then reporters ask coach Les Miles for a clarification. His response? “I’m not saying.”
Here is the problem that most coaches don’t seem to understand. Miles has every right to handle discipline within the confines of his program. But the response to allegedly bad information-that Perrilloux is being suspended for the spring-is not to shut down ALL information. You replace bad information with good information. Now the entire spring practice is going to be dominated by this story. There could be 100 great stories coming out of spring practice at LSU but nobody is going to care.
Does Miles owe a complete explanation to the media on this? Absolutely not. But a college football program is like a political campaign. If you don’t control the message others will control it for you. In today’s media culture, an information vacuum is going to be filled by something-and it is usually bad information.
See you Monday.
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How should college football handle bad behavior?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is all too predictable.
The football season ends. The structure of spring practice has yet to begin.
The police blotter for college football players starts. And the bad behavior ranges from DUI, to bar fights, to the always popular and vague “violation of team rules.”
And there is frustration everywhere.
Fans and alumni get upset. Not only does this behavior have the potential to hurt their favorite team, but it also embarrasses their schools. The adults just don’t understand why, given the rare opportunity to play college football, the young men would risk losing it for one minute.
Fans of other schools get in their shots, sending doctored pictures around the internet making fun of the player or coach of the school hit by the trouble. They do this fully knowing that their time is coming.
The media, and I’m certainly guilty of this, start drawing lines in the sand. This school/coach is soft on crime. This punishment is not enough. Why don’t you just kick this guy off the team and be done with it? Why don’t you just put your foot down and say: “Okay, the next guy who steps over this line gets a one-way bus ticket home?” That will show them.
Here’s why it’s just not that simple. While the fans the media see a freshman left tackle or a sophomore running back who just violated team rules and embarrassed himself and the program, the coaches and the school see somebody’s child. At some point in the recruitment of that player, a coach sat in a living room and promised a parent or a guardian that their child would be treated fairly both on the field and off.
As tempting as it might be, you can’t use somebody else’s child in an attempt scare 100 other athletes into toeing the line.
Now I’m not naïve. There comes a point where the only way one of these guys is ever going to “get it” is to let him go so that he can start over. There comes a point where the persistent violation of rules by one or two individuals hurts the entire team. Then the head coach has to bring the hammer down.
I also know that these decisions become real complicated when it is a player who can help a program win. If a coach is making $2-3 million a year, kicking a player off the team has to give him pause. If a coach has one system of justice for star players and another for guys who sit on the bench he should be criticized. He should also be ashamed.
But remember this. All of us, the media included, have created this system that starts holding these guys up to public scrutiny and praise before they are old enough to shave. We have created a system where high school children are having signing day press conferences on ESPN. Most—the vast majority in fact—have the maturity to handle it. Some don’t.
I’m not making excuses for bad behavior. I’m just saying that dealing with that behavior is not as simple as we would like for it to be.
If you have some ideas on the subject, I’d love to hear them.
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ACC Spring Ball: Five burning questions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here are my five burning questions about the ACC as we head into Spring practice. What are yours?
1. Can Clemson find some Hogs? With running backs James Davis (1,064 yards) and C.J. Spiller (768 yards) both coming back along with quarterback Cullen Harper (27 TD) and receiver Aaron Kelly (88 catches), the Tigers should have the best offense in the ACC. But the Tigers have to replace both offensive tackles and one of the guards in order for these talented people to do their thing.
2. How long will it take for Georgia Tech to find a quarterback? Josh Nesbitt, the sophomore from Greene County, and Auburn transfer Calvin Booker both have a lot of talent. But the learning curve in Paul Johnson’s offense is really steep. The decision making and execution in this offense is more precise than anything these two guys have ever seen. Chances are that neither will win the job outright during spring practice and that the competition will continue into August.
3. Will David Cutcliffe have an immediate impact at Duke? Quarterback Thaddeus Lewis has started for two seasons and in 2007 threw for 2,430 yards and 21 touchdowns. But now Lewis is going to get a crash course on how to REALLY play quarterback from Cutcliffe, who begins with seven starters back on offense and 10 on defense. Cutcliffe has already put his offensive linemen on a diet in order to be leaner and quicker. It usually takes a quarterback an entire season just to grasp Cutcliffe’s system. It will be interesting to see if Lewis is a quick study.
4. Can Christian Ponder beat out Drew Weatherford?: I have it on pretty good authority that Jimbo Fisher, Florida State’s offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting, is intrigued by what Ponder, a redshirt sophomore, can do. Ponder only played in one game last season (a 40-21 loss to Virginia Tech), where he made some big plays but also made a bunch of mistakes. The competition between Ponder and senior Drew Weatherford (2,049 yards, 9 TD in 2007) will be interesting.
5. Is Robert Marve the answer at Miami? For a place known as Quarterback U., there hasn’t been a lot of good play at the position lately. Marve will get a chance to change that his spring. As a high school senior in 2006 he was Mr. Florida Football but a traffic accident and the resulting surgeries kept him off the field as a true freshman in 2007. Coach Randy Shannon says he won’t name a starting quarterback until this summer after his highly rated recruiting class arrives in Coral Gables. If Miami is going to be relevant again, somebody has to step up and play quarterback at a high level.
ACC SPRING PRACTICE STARTING DATES
Boston College (March 25)
Clemson (March 8)
Duke (March 20)
Florida State (March 18)
Georgia Tech (March 24)
Maryland (March 25)
Miami (started Tuesday)
North Carolina (March 3)
N.C. State (March 18)
Virginia (March 21)
Virginia Tech (March 26)
Wake Forest (March 26)
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SEC Spring Ball: Five burning questions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since Auburn and Mississippi State have already started practice, it’s not too early to talk spring football in the SEC. In fact, here are the five burning questions I have about the SEC as spring ball begins:
1. Can Georgia handle the hype? The Bulldogs will be in everybody’s top five in preseason and will be No. 1 on a lot of ballots come this summer. It’s been a long time since Georgia has been the SEC favorite and a preseason contender for the national championship. I wouldn’t expect to see players like QB Matthew Stafford and RB Knowshown Moreno getting a lot of work in spring practice. Everybody knows that they can do. Bottom line: Life is different when the the whole world is telling you how good your are. I’m anxious to see how Georgia handles it in the spring and summer.
2. Can Alabama find some receivers? The Crimson Tide returns nine starters on offense but receivers DJ Hall and Keith Brown are gone as new coordinator Jim McElwain installs a new offense. The replacements may have to come from the talented freshman class. One of those freshmen, Chris Jackson of McDonough (Henry County), graduated from high school early and is already enrolled at Alabama. Julio Jones, the nation’s best high school receiver, will arrive in August.
3. Will Steve Spurrier finally find his quarterback in Stephen Garcia? The head ball coach hung in there with Blake Mitchell, Chris Smelly and Tommy Beecher last season but he is still looking for somebody who can run his offense the way HE wants it run. This spring he’ll find out if Garcia is the guy. Garcia, a Florida kid who enrolled at South Carolina in January of 2007, might have played last season as a true freshman but he was arrested twice in a 16-day period in February and March. Spurrier has said publicly that one more strike and Garcia is out. Still, he’s the most talented quarterback the Gamecocks have.
4. What will Tennessee’s offense look like? Dave Clawson, the former head coach at Richmond, is the new offensive coordinator and it looks like junior Jonathon Crompton will replace Erik Ainge at quarterback. Clawson’s offenses put up some pretty impressive numbers at Richmond but consider this: With four out of five starters returning on the offensive line and with RB Arian Foster coming back to take a shot at the Tennessee career rushing record, don’t expect anything fancy. Foster, who had his knee scoped in January, may not do a whole lot in spring. He needs 654 yards to break the Tennessee record of 3,087 yards set by Travis Henry.
5. Who will be the Auburn quarterback? You’d have to say that Kodi Burns has a leg up on the job of running the spread offense of new coordinator Tony Franklin. Burns scored the winning touchdown in overtime in the win over Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. But keep an eye on junior college transfer Chris Todd. Todd started his career at Texas Tech and then transferred to a junior college when he lost the quarterback job to Graham Harrell. Todd is a better passer than Burns and has known Franklin and the principles of this offense since he was in high school. When spring practice started last Sunday Franklin said the quarterback race was wide open.
So what did I leave out? What’s your burning question going into spring practice?
Tomorrow we’ll look at the ACC.
SEC STARTING DATES FOR SPRING PRACTICE
Alabama (March 13)
Arkansas (April 3)
Auburn (started last Sunday)
Florida (March 19)
Georgia (March 3)
Kentucky (March 26)
LSU (Feb. 29)
Ole Miss (March 17)
Miss. State (started Monday)
South Carolina (March 19)
Tennessee (March 11)
Vanderbilt (March 11)
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It’s great to be back!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When last we met, way back on Jan. 11, I thought I would give you until March before inflicting you once more with these daily ramblings. But sometimes the sheer weight of events makes it impossible to stay away.
So what did I miss? Here are five stories that caught my attention.
1. Alabama (Bear Bryant), Auburn (Shug Jordan), Ole Miss (John Vaught), Tennessee (Robert Neyland), and Georgia Tech (Bobby Dodd) have all named their stadiums after the most successful coaches in school history. Georgia just announced that it is going to name a garden and some athletics buildings for Vince Dooley, who won 201 games, six SEC championships, one national championship, and gave 41 years to the school.
Are you kidding me?
2. After waiting three years to finally become the starting quarterback for LSU, it took Ryan Perrilloux less than two months to get suspended indefinitely by coach Les Miles. That has got to be some kind of record.
With Perrilloux, the Tigers will be good enough to win the SEC West again. The only other quarterback in camp with experience (Andrew Hatch) is a transfer from Harvard — never a good sign. Miles has a big decision to make.
3. Alabama signed the greatest recruiting class in the history of Earth. The recruiting class was so good that the other 11 teams in the SEC have decided to quit giving scholarships and play football only as a club sport. Just kidding. Okay, Alabama recruited well. Alabama SHOULD recruit well. But please, some perspective.
4. Reading the blogs on signing day, one Auburn fan was so dejected about his class relative to Alabama’s that he wrote that head coach Tommy Tuberville needed “to step it up.” Well, let’s see. Last time I checked, Tuberville had won six straight games against Alabama (a school record) and was 26-6 in his last 32 SEC games. Tuberville recently told a crowd that, contrary to some reports, Auburn will field a football team in 2008.
5.Tennessee punter Britton Colquitt has been suspended for the Vols’ first five games and has lost his scholarship after this fifth alcohol-related incident since coming to campus. According to media reports, Colquitt is the sixth Tennessee player to be charged by police since Jan. 11. John Adams, a columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel, says coach Phillip Fulmer should be fired. Fulmer responded with his own column in the same newspaper saying that he was not a big fan of John Adams’ work. Should be a fun off-season on old Rocky Top.
Just think. We’re having this much fun and it’s not even March yet.
What’s been your favorite college football story so far in 2008?
It’s good to be back.
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