Tommy Tuberville’s Midas Touch

In a totally expected development, Texas Tech’s offense last year declined from its Leach-era levels of excellence to the merely mediocre.

… The Red Raiders not only declined in raw statistics, but also in their rank within the conference. This decline was also across the board. After ranking either first or second in completion percentage in the conference in each of Leach’s last four seasons, the Red Raiders fell to fifth in 2010. An even further descent occurred in yards per pass, where the Red Raiders fell to ninth and passer rating where they fell to eighth. Not only did the Red Raiders decline in every significant passing category, but outside of completion percentage, they were below average throwing the football!

If the past is any indication, it’s the quarterbacks’ fault.

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Wednesday morning buffet

Rise and shine, campers.

• According to Houston Nutt, there are four kinds of people – and three of them suck.
• Charlie Weis may believe that charity begins at home, but his former builder disagrees.
• Arthur Lynch is a big dude.
• So how much is a college athletic scholarship worth?
• Yes, Virginia, home-field advantage exists.
• Joshua sees oversigning’s hand in the Auburn pay-for-play story.  (It’s a reach.)
• This is why I like David Paschall:  “This is the third consecutive spring in which Bulldogs players have pledged that better leadership is on the way for a program that finished No. 2 nationally in 2007 but has since gone 10-3, 8-5 and 6-7.” That’s what you call artfully phrased skepticism.

Nothing like keeping your priorities straight.

SPORTSbyBROOKS posts a transcript of a portion of the HBO college sports show that looks like it’ll cause a major meltdown on the Plains.  This is by far my favorite part:

Kremer to McClover: “How much was a sack worth?”

McClover: “Anywhere between 300 and 400 dollars. For one.”

Kremer to McClover: “I think in one game you had four sacks, what did you earn in that game?”

McClover: “Four thousand. Against Alabama.”

Kremer: “Seriously?”

McClover: “Alabama, a rivalry game.”

Kremer: “More money because it’s Alabama?”

McClover: “Definitely. No other game matters.”

It’s all over but the shouting.

If Jon Gruden says it, it must be true.

… Gruden said if the Florida players do a good job picking up new offensive and defensive systems this spring, watch out in the fall, this Gator team could be very, very good. He said the Muschamp-Weis coaching combination is the best in college football. [Emphasis added.]

I guess Charlie hired the wrong defensive coordinator in South Bend.

Violation of team rules

Erik Ainge comes clean about his drug addiction, which had gone on for a long time.

… By the time I was a senior in college, I was an addict. I played my whole senior season with a broken finger on my throwing hand. It was really badly broken. Just taking the snap, throwing the ball, handing it off, getting tackled — everything that goes along with playing quarterback — it was very painful.

Throughout that process, I became hooked on pain killers. I got them from the team doctor. I went through the prescriptions pretty fast. After he had been giving them to me for quite a while, he said he couldn’t give them to me anymore.

I was hooked on them and I was playing football, and there was no way I was going to cancel my senior year by going to rehab. I started getting them from people, buying them, getting them off the street. I wasn’t the only player on the team that was doing it, so we knew people. It wasn’t, like, super sketchy or anything. We knew people who had them, and we were Tennessee football players, so they pretty much just gave them to us.

Just to refresh your memories, Ainge didn’t miss a game that season.

************************************************************************

UPDATE: Chris Low, master of understatement.

If nothing else, it certainly calls into question the validity and effectiveness of Tennessee’s drug-testing program while he was there.

Tuesday morning buffet

There’s always something to nibble on.

• If you’re like me in that you think there’s always room for one more college football game on TV, then this is good news.  Even if it is from Fox.
• Speaking of which, the Pac-12 is thinking about how the football fan abhors a vacuum and may be positioning itself to do something about that if there’s no NFL this fall.
• Shakin’ the Southland takes a look at linebacker fundamentals.
• Derek Dooley on player motivation:  “What I was surprised at was he wasn’t coming to me and saying, ‘I want the ball.’…I sat there and purposely didn’t give him the ball just to see if he would ever come and he didn’t. Then, I decided we should probably give him the ball.” Okay, fine.
• Zach Dillard updates his medical report on Aaron Murray.
• I’m not sure which part of this story amuses me more, that NC State is trying to enforce its trademarked nickname against a school which was using it at least a decade before the farmers, or that it’s taken State twenty years to get around to doing something about it.
• “Maybe the answer for most of the ills of our sport is to finally give the football and basketball athletes a choice. Have the NFL and NBA spend the money to establish their own farm systems and draft qualified athletes in those sports right out of high school and sign them to minor league contracts. Let the pro scouts put their money where their mouths are and take the pressure off of college sports.” Well, yeah.  The trick is how do you convince the pros to do that?

Talk is cheap. Put it in writing.

Tennessee’s new men’s basketball head coach was assured by America’s Sharpest Athletic Director™ that all is under control in Vol Land.

“Mike assured me everything will work out, and I support that 100 percent,” Martin said. “Whatever happens with the NCAA, I’m here to coach a ball team and to be successful doing that. I’m really not concerned with what the NCAA has to do, what they have to say. We’ll just wait and see when that happens.”

Still, he’s not that trusting.

Martin’s “memorandum of understanding” — a contract has not been finalized — at UT includes clauses that protect his position in the face of NCAA sanctions. The five-year agreement would be extended annually for each year of recruiting restrictions, scholarship reductions or a postseason ban from the NCAA. [Emphasis added.]

With Pearl’s and Junior’s issues, that’s got the potential to be Hewitt-esque.

Oh, and speaking of the Laner, guess who wants to come to Tennessee’s infractions hearing with the NCAA?

USC AD Pat Haden says he wants to attend Tennessee’s June infractions hearing as an “observer.”

Haden told CBSSports.com he was in the process of making a request to the NCAA.

“I hope I’m able to attend as an observer,” Haden said. “I have a request [in] … I’ve been told by people I should be able to.”

All of which leads to today’s orange-tinted poll.

Soft is as soft does.

In the preseason, sometimes there’s a fine line between happy talk and denial.  Cordy Glenn walks that line.

“I felt like everybody kind of labeled us as soft last year,” senior Cordy Glenn said. “We’re just trying to come out and let everybody know this year that’s not the case…”

You can include your coach in that “everybody”, Cordy.

“I think a couple of players were upset that I didn’t go for it. But if you want to make it, make it on third-and-1.”

What a fine mess…

When the hiring of a new men’s basketball coach prompts columns like this, you know Mike Hamilton’s legacy at Tennessee is just where you’d like it, if you’re a Georgia fan.  I don’t know how he still has a job, but long may he run.

“Even the SEC has higher standards.”

Ouch.