The Zooker ups the ante, and other last minute recruiting notes.

• Hey Gator fans – Ron Zook says he’s about to take things to a new plateau. Best. Class. Evah.

“If we can close things out, we can have possibly the best class I’ve ever been around,” Zook said. “We’re excited about the caliber of player we’re getting.”

• Geaux Signing Day. Do you ever get the impression that LSU fans generally look for any excuse to drink they can find?

…some 5,000 fans are expected at the Baton Rouge River Center Wednesday for the 13th annual, 10-hour Tiger Gridiron Club Bayou Bash Football Recruiting Party. Tickets are $35 in advance, $45 at the door and 10-seat tables are available for $1,000. There will be 30 food booths offering indigenous cuisine, including jambalaya from 10 a.m. until closing, and 38 vendors selling various other products football related and not football related. And, of course, there will be adult beverages for sale.

The doors open at 8:30 a.m. LSU football coach Les Miles, who brought the house down with his speech last year, will close down the house at about 5 p.m. In between, former LSU players will speak, the Golden Band from Tigerland will perform, various coaches will speak and a highlight video of the Tigers’ 2007 BCS national championship will be shown.

In the rest of the country, Wednesday is national signing day for high school and junior college football players. At the River Center, it will be party time in a room usually reserved for Mardi Gras balls.

“It’s out of control,” said Chico Moore, who is vice president of the Gridiron Club and helped start the first official bash back in 1996 at the LSU Field House. “It’s completely out of control.”

• One can only imagine what this kid’s been told in the past few days. All’s fair in love, war and recruiting (especially if you’re Phil Fulmer). The thing is, he’s from the Atlanta area. It’s not like he doesn’t already have some idea about Petrino’s MO.
• Sometimes, this is what comes of having second thoughts.

Advertisement

Coaches’ corner

Three articles (h/t The Wizard of Odds) worth a peek:

• You don’t see this too often (mainly because most cities these days don’t have competing newspapers), but here’s a columnist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer going on the attack about the Seattle Times’ articles on the University of Washington’s 2000 football team. Some of the response sounds like picking nits, some of it sounds more like criticism of the cops and prosecutors involved than the paper and some looks valid, but he had me at “You probably expect me to again defend Rick Neuheisel…” Especially “again”…
• “Saban insists he is not paranoid.” Oh, puh-leeze. Those damned lazy assed coaches! We all know that Saban and Meyer are the only guys that work hard at recruiting.
• More “kids get their offers pulled for no good reason” stories. Consider these, all you folks who’ve been dumping on Dwayne Allen the past few days. There are always two sides to that coin (that Mike Gundy is a real class act). As Grant Teaff says in that article,

“One of the things the media always does and you make it clear is ‘commitments are non-binding,'” Teaff said. “It is the reality of what it is.

“That doesn’t make it perfect, but it is reality.”

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

UPDATE: And there’s this one about God and football (or is it football and God?) that’s got one of the more obvious quotes from Steve Spurrier that you’re ever gonna read: “My profession is trying to be a football coach,” Spurrier said. “I don’t think my calling was to be a preacher.” No kidding…

“Not sure” is killing women’s pro basketball.

I posted on one of these last year, but there’s another Harris poll out on America’s taste in organized sports. Once again, to nobody’s surprise, pro football rules the roost.

… Three in ten Americans who follow one or more sport (30%) say that professional football is their favorite sport, almost unchanged from last year when 29 percent said it was their favorite. Coming in at second is baseball, as 15 percent say that is their favorite sport, again almost unchanged from last year when it was 14 percent. Not far behind baseball is college football (12%) and auto racing (10%). All other sports are in single digits.

Some of the long term trends are fascinating. Pro basketball post-Jordan has fallen into a rut from which it may never emerge – even pro hockey is more popular at present. And what can you say about women’s sports when the viewing public would rather see horses?

But my favorite part of this is the demographics of the fans. Here’s the chart:

DEMOGRAPHIC VARIATIONS IN FAVORITE SPORTS

““If you had to choose, which ONE of these sports would you say is your favorite?”

Base: All adults who follow more than one sport

Sport		All Adults		Highest				Lowest
		%				%				%
Pro football		30		$50,000-$74,999		39		Hispanics		20
				Those aged 25-29		37		Post graduate		23
				Those 65 and older		35		Liberals		24
				Easterners		34		College graduates		25
Baseball		15		Easterners		21		South		8
				Those 30-39		21		Those 65 and older		9
				Democrats		20		Republicans		13
College Football		12		College graduates		22		Easterners		3
				Southerners		20		African Americans		5
				Republicans		19		$35,000 – $49,999		7
Auto Racing		10		Those aged 30-39		14		Hispanics		1
				Southerners		13		Those aged 18-24		4
				Conservatives		13		College graduates		5

Man, talk about your cliché goldmine. Except for Republicans not liking baseball so much. Maybe it’s just their way of rejecting W’s past life as an ineffectual head of the Texas Rangers.

And college football fans: white, Southern, Republican. Who knew? At least we’re educated.

College football tapas

Feel free to snack on this morning’s tidbits.

• CFN has a “where are they now?” retrospect on 30 five star recruits from 2004, including Brandon Miller and Charles Johnson. Bonus points earned for the Eric McLendon entry.
• Dawg fans, meet the starting quarterback for the Arizona State Sun Devils.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  (h/t Deadspin)
• This guy thinks the NFL ought to experiment with the BCS system.
• What is it with SEC head coaches, recruiting and ping pong? I’m waiting for the Richt-Brooks smack talk.
• If you’re afraid you won’t be able to keep up with Signing Day news, fear not, dear friends. Even the Big Ten Network’s got your back. (Assuming you get the Big Ten Network, that is.)