Tuesday morning buffet

Dig in, y’all.

• It’s the little things about SOD’s tenure in Knoxville you appreciate:  “The two seasons under Dooley were the first back-to-back losing years in program history in 100 years.”
• That’s a trend his assistant coaches hope gets reversed this year.
• Damn you, FOIA requests!:  evidently some Arkansas boosters want to provide the football coach with a private phone.
• Meanwhile everybody at Arkansas – including Bobby Petrino – loves the John L. Smith hire.  (If it’s such a great move, why only commit to a ten-month contract?)
• File this under dogs and cats, living together.
• Somebody needs to explain to me why having a spring game against another school interferes with developing players while playing one that’s inter-squad doesn’t.
• An IRS official takes the position that paying college players wouldn’t affect schools’ tax-exempt status.
• Former agent Josh Luchs says most agents lose on their first deal with a client because after the third round of the draft, the commission check will not cover expenses already spent and invested on that prospect, which seems to beg an obvious question.
• In case you’re interested, Matt Hayes thinks Jarvis Jones and Aaron Murray are two of the fifteen best players in the country right now.

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Don’t cry for me, Gainesville.

This weekend, between the fried shrimp and classic cars, I managed to read this epic troll from Mike Bianchi.  And when I say epic, I mean epic.  I’m not sure how Bianchi ever tops this, for one:

As the years have passed since he was run out of Florida, I’ve often wondered whether Zook got a fair shake — from fans, from administrators and from those of us in the media. When you see where the program is now after Urban Meyer left it in a mess, the Zook years are starting to look pretty good. Zook’s teams were never as pathetic as UF has been the past two seasons, when the Gators won just 15 games and trotted out offenses that were unwatchable.

As the years roll by, UF fans more and more seem to appreciate what Zook did for the program.

Gosh, that almost makes you wonder why Jeremy Foley didn’t man up, admit his mistake and beg Zooker to come back and salvage the program when Corch left.  Who really cares about those two national titles Florida won under Meyer, anyway?

Speaking of which, a man can dream can’t he?

Two years after Zook was axed, Meyer won the national title with 21 of 22 Zook recruits starting for the team. Zook still wonders what might have happened if he had been able to survive longer than 21/2 years at UF. Would he have won a national title?

I don’t know,” he says, “but I sure would have liked to have had the opportunity to try.”

Spoken like a man who was Croom’d.

Zook just shakes his head.

“That’s my legacy to the profession,” he says. “I’m the first guy who had a FireTheCoach.com website. I had no chance. From the day I walked into the introductory press conference, I was fired.”

Bianchi has painted his masterpiece.   A man can do great things when the threat of being banished to Seat 37F no longer looms large.

He’s orange, rested and ready.

If we can’t have the Zooker on the Plains, this wouldn’t be a bad consolation prize.

UT has contacted former UT asst ron zook about DC job. Zook is former head coach at fla and illinois and has been successful DC. he'd listen—
Jimmy Hyams (@JimmyHyams) January 09, 2012

Tennessee, he’s got SEC head coaching experience, in case SOD doesn’t work out.  Just sayin’.

Life imitates art.

There’s no way this comes to fruition, but if it would help, I’d be willing to pay good money for it.

Auburn: Sources tell me that Auburn head coach Gene Chizik has interest in former Illinois head coach Ron Zook for the defensive coordinator position.

Trooper and Zooker.  Man, talk about your dream team coaching staff.  That would be your ultimate controlled experiment of Jimmies-and-Joes vs. Xs-and-Os.  Sort of recruiting über alles.

Monday morning buffet

Dig in.  Everything tastes good this week.

• Pat Forde flays Urban Meyer’s credibility.
• The NCAA is opening a real Pandora’s Box with its Penn State inquiry.  Not that I’d expect anything less from Mark Emmert.
• Illinois becomes the first team in D-1 history to open the season with six wins and finish with six losses; the Zooker is canned and essentially calls the disastrous end a flesh wound.
• The Florida Gators are anything but all in right now.
• Girl, do you eat with that finger?
• If Mike Leach can’t land a coaching job this offseason, he never will.
• “If we don’t give away points, there’s no way they can beat us.” – Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones to the Associated Press, about LSU in Saturday’s SEC title game.  (Makes a nice bookend with Tech’s Julian Burnett’s quote a few paragraphs down.)
• Missouri is about to find out with its move to the SEC that it has to spend money to make money.

That’s my Zooker!

Ron Zook can handle noise in the system, but pesky presser questions about his future… not so much.

Ron Zook thinks scores are overrated.

Reason #2846 why the Zooker is a national treasure:

Why did Illinois go for two after scoring a touchdown Saturday that put it ahead 20-13 with 7:18 left in the second quarter?

Because coach Ron Zook, who tells his players to keep playing and not worry about the score, took his own advice too literally and was so immersed in the game that he didn’t know the score.

‘‘We were down five, right? Up five, I mean,’’ he said. ‘‘It was 20-13? Up seven?’’

You know that airline ad where they show an embarrassing moment and say, ‘‘Wanna get away?’’ This was it.

‘‘Maybe I didn’t know what the score was,’’ Zook said. ‘‘That’s happened to me before. It’s usually when we’re behind. [This will] give you something to pound us about.’’

Like anyone’s needed an excuse before…

Wednesday lunch buffet

Dig in, folks.

• If you’ve got questions about Coach Tereshinski’s goals as the S & C coach, go talk to Arthur Lynch.
• Expect to see this story get waved in our faces over the next week.
• ESPN‘s Edward Aschoff puts two Georgia offensive linemen on his SEC division all-star team.  The only other school that gets the same treatment is Alabama.  (By the way, the issue with eating at the Varsity ain’t about getting bloated.)
• The Zooker sure can pick ‘em.
• See if you can spot the Freudian slip here.  (My apologies – and admiration – to Low if that was a deliberate pun.)
• Shakin the Southland runs an analysis of SEC football attendance from a Clemson perspective.
• Check out Georgia recruit Quayvon Hicks’ new trim.  (h/t Bryan Fischer)
• Hard to believe, but Georgia played a road game against VMI, of all schools, in 1966.
• This is hugely good news for Tennessee.
• And kleph charts SEC offensive and defensive red zone production.  Mike Bobo comes off pretty well.

Please, God…

Or Gator Bowl committee, make this happen.  If nothing else, it ought to provide fodder for at least three good EDSBS posts.

Who says minor bowl games can’t be fun?

Sunday morning buffet

Settle down with a few tasty morsels:

• A.J. Green has to average 102 yards per game this season to eclipse Terrence Edwards’ SEC career receiving record.
• “I’ve already said Rich is our coach this fall and WVU’s announcement does not change that fact.” Translation:  somebody better win some games real soon.  [Emphasis added.]
• It looks like somebody else had to move out of a dorm room as a result of oversigning.  I doubt you’ll need three guesses to name the program involved.
• Here’s a good piece on National Letters of Intent and departing coaches.
• In case you’re interested, here’s an early look at Florida’s two deep.
• Along the same lines, here’s a Q&A review of Georgia Tech.
• Could this year be Zooker’s last chance?
• Georgia has two of the three longest-serving at the same school assistant coaches in the SEC – which makes sense when you consider that Richt is the dean of the conference head coaches.