AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2008 > December > 12
Friday, December 12, 2008
Will Muschamp will not be the next coach at Auburn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We are about to face one of the darkest Saturdays of the fall. Except for the playoffs, there is no college football. The beginning of the bowl season is still a week away. Ugh.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t make predictions. I went 3-2 last week because I picked Boston College to beat Virginia Tech in the ACC championship (I should never doubt Frank Beamer) and I picked Tulsa’s high-flying offense to beat East Carolina in the Conference USA championship. My pick of Florida over Alabama in the SEC championship was looking pretty bleak when the fourth quarter started. But the Gators had No. 15 (Tim Tebow). So we end the season with a record of 95-50.
I made a lot of wrong picks this season, but looking back I only made one REALLY dumb pick and that was Georgia over Florida. Georgia was coming off a road game at LSU, who we now know was not very good, and Florida was coming off a serious beat-down over Kentucky and was playing lights out.
So here are a few predictions that should get you through the weekend:
1. Will Muschamp will not the be the next coach at Auburn: I just got off the phone with Will Muschamp, the defensive coordinator and head coach in waiting at Texas. He emphatically shot down television reports in Mobile that he would be the named the next coach at Auburn today.
“I have not talked to Auburn about this job and I have no interest in the job,” said Muschamp. “I really don’t know what else to say. I’m going to stay at Texas until they fire me.”
My sources tell me that some Board of Trustee members did pick up the phone and call Muschamp to find out if he was interested. But those sources also tell me that when Muschamp was at Auburn as DC, he and athletics director Jay Jacobs did not part on the best of terms.
2.It’s pay day for Tech’s Paul Johnson: The fact of the matter is that Johnson left significantly more money on the table at Duke and SMU in order to take the job at Georgia Tech. Why? Johnson knew that he could win an ACC championship at Georgia Tech and get to a BCS bowl. He took less money on the front end because he knew that if he won, the money would come on the back end of the deal. Well guess what? It’s pay day for Paul Johnson.
Georgia Tech went 9-3 and beat Georgia. The Yellow Jackets fans have bought every ticket they can get their hands on for the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Some bowl people are telling me that Georgia Tech is considered to be one of the hottest teams in the country. And that is only after one season under Johnson. I know Johnson well enough to know that he’s not hung up on money. But professional pride says he should be paid in in the top half of ACC coaches. Tech is not rolling in money but the Institute needs to step up. Now.
3. Heisman vote will be one of closest ever: I think Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell should have been invited to join Florida’s Tim Tebow, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Texas’s Colt McCoy at the Heisman Trophy presentation tomorrow night. Harrell was mentioned in the same breath with the other three all season. The reason Harrell wasn’t invited, I believe, is that there is a significant gap in the votes between those three guys and him. That tells me that this vote is going to be close.
Understand that the Heisman voting is very much like a political election in that you have to carry regions of the country in order to win. There are six voting regions: South, Southwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Far West.
It’s a pretty good bet that Tebow is going to carry the South but it is also a pretty good bet that and Bradford, McCoy and Harrell will divide the vote in the Southwest. The Heisman voting is different than an election in that you get points for second and third place votes. Last season Tebow carried five of the six voting regions and so the odds are good that this time he will be on just about everybody’s ballot somewhere.
4. Investigation will clear UCF, O’Leary: Central Florida is doing the right thing in calling for an independent investigation into the collapse of player Brandon Davis during a recent morning workout. Davis got woozy and so the decision was made to take him to a local hospital. The reason this was news was that back in March another UCF Player, Eric Plancher, died during a workout. The school did not handle that tragedy well in terms of being quick to investigate and putting all of the information about Plancher’s death on the table.
That episode caused a cloud of suspicion to rise over this incident. The parents of the player have charged in media reports that Davis had kidney failure and was not given water during the work out. Both of those things are going to turn out not to be true. But those charges began a feeding frenzy and speculation that George O’Leary was on his way out as head coach. UCF has hired an attorney with NCAA experience to conduct a thorough investigation into the training practices in O’Leary’s program. It will show that UCF’s workouts are no different than any other program in Division I-A football. Are those programs too strenuous? That’s another argument.
Some are calling for O’Leary’s resignation because of all the negativity surrounding the program this season. They feel it is the only way to lift the cloud of suspicion over the program. Unless this investigation turns up a smoking gun, that is not going to happen.
5. The politicians will lose to the BCS again: Yet another member of Congress with too much free time on his hands is introducing legislation in an effort to compel Division I-A football to adopt a playoff. His point is that the BCS “consistently misfires” and since there is controversy around the national championship, a system like the BCS should not be able to market itself as a game FOR the national championship.
The fact that there is controversy surrounding the national championship of college football certainly comes as a shock to all of us who follow the sport.
This is so silly. We will eventually get a four-team playoff in college football. But it will be because it makes sense to the institutions that make up Division I-A and not because members of Congress want to score cheap political points.
Chick-fil-A Luncheon: If you’re free for lunch on Monday, come by the Marriott Marquis as The Atlanta Sports Council will host a luncheon featuring the two coaches who will square off in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Dec. 31. Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson and LSU’s Les Miles will break down the game and answer questions from fans. Tickets are $35 and can be reserved by calling (404) 586-8537.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
