Cat fight!

Best of the SEC Blogs notes a recent dustup between Brian Cook (he of Mgoblog and AOL Fanhouse) and two ‘Bama bloggers over Nick Saban’s very large, very highly rated 2008 recruiting class.

The origin of the spat is an article about the size of the Tide’s class and the roster moves facing Saban to comply with 85/25 limits. Brian riffs off that combined with some irritation he feels over the criticism that’s been recently directed Rich Rodriguez’s way – none of which has anything to do with oversigning, which makes its inclusion in his post puzzling, to say the least – to go on a diatribe about honoring the 25 man limit in deed as well as in word.

Needless to say, ‘Bama fans are a bit sensitive about harsh words sent in Saban’s direction.

I’m not sure who’s gonna get the last word in all of this, but it should be noted that it’s not the first time Cook has slammed oversigning in the South.

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UPDATE: You had to figure an Auburn blogger would want to get his two cents in. Jerry at The Joe Cribbs Car Wash makes some honorable points (which means that he’s being somewhat critical of Saban). But don’t miss the update at the end of his post.

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“You still can’t put a logo on a toilet seat, but you can now put one on a casket…”

I don’t know how I missed this story yesterday.

…The Board of Regents Wednesday re-visited a decades-old policy banning the use of college logos on burial items like coffins or urns, allowing fans to bring their love for their alma maters into the hereafter. A Macon-based business, Collegiate Memorials, asked the Regents to loosen the rules and after a closer look at other states’ policies, members of the board relented.

The ban was part of a policy written in 1982, that prohibited logos on burial items, sex toys and alcoholic beverages, among others.

Sex toys emblazoned with a Bulldog logo?  How much demand do you figure is out there for that?

Matt Hayes ♥ Slick Rick

In case you haven’t noticed recently, TSN’s Matt Hayes has a serious mancrush on UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel. Matt really rose to Neuheisel’s defense in this piece that criticized the Seattle Times’ series on problems with the University of Washington’s 2000 football team. You can feel the love:

… Neuheisel says he refused comment to the Times on the investigation because he still feels the newspaper has a personal vendetta against him. He told me the same thing four years ago when I went to Seattle to write about his lawsuit against the NCAA and Washington.

Hayes claims to be skeptical… until he finds the smoking gun.

…Still, I was skeptical about the “vendetta” Neuheisel claimed. Then I read the Times series, and more shocking, the response from executive editor David Boardman in addressing questions from readers. One of the questions: Was this series timed to hurt UW football recruiting …?

Boardman’s answer was, “…We did not intend to impact UW recruiting one way or another, though in retrospect the story seems more likely to hurt recruiting by UCLA, where Neuheisel is the new coach, than it does at (Washington).”

ZOMG! Timing equals intent! The bastards were out to screw the guy!

Never mind that the series seems to have had zero impact on UCLA’s incoming class. Or that the vast majority of complaints the Times received from its readers felt that it would impact UW’s recruiting. Or that Hayes never argues that the problems didn’t exist and that Neuheisel wasn’t there when much of the mess happened (Hayes gives us the political defenses of “mistakes were made” and “nobody’s perfect” as a balance to what he sees as the newspaper’s bad faith).

As further support to his “the man’s been done wrong” position, Hayes points to the blog post from a writer at the competing Seattle paper who felt he had a few scores to settle with the Times’ reporting and has a warm spot for Neuheisel as well.

Here is where the irony gets thick. Hayes claims that some of the Times’ writers aren’t happy with him about what he wrote in 2004 about RN.

Judging from this response, (h/t The Wizard of Odds) it looks like he’s right. It also looks like there was some validity to their complaints. There’s some pretty scathing stuff in there, both with regard to football pundit and head coach. (“I’ll grant this much — when it came to Rick Neuheisel’s time at UW, the truth was often as hard to find as a running game.”)

There are lots of axes to grind here, it seems.

Anyway you look at it, it’s pretty clear that it’s hard to be neutral if you’re a writer covering Neuheisel. Which means that the UCLA football beat writers should be in for a treat in the next few years.

Numbers game

Brannan Southerland and Brandon Wood are out for spring practice.  And it looks like Tripp Taylor is out, period.

While on the topic of Georgia spring football, Tom Dienhart, of all people, raises an interesting question (albeit not directly):  who the heck is going to kickoff at the G-Day game?

Keeping the man happy

It looks like Mark Richt’s long wished for indoor practice facility is moving up the food chain as a building priority.

… Football coach Mark Richt has voiced his desire to have an indoor practice facility to use during inclement weather and it was identified as a “priority venue” to be studied on “an accelerated schedule,” in one Dec. 20 memo from architectural firm Sasaki Associates to Gwynne Darden of the UGA Office of University Architects.

The tough issue at this point may be where to put the sucker.

Georgia looked at different plans for an indoor facility around the Butts-Mehre building, but the preferred plan appears to be near the softball/soccer complex. That projected cost could start at $21.5 million.

Even that location is not without issues and would need further study.

“The tricky thing about soccer/softball is the elevations are not great out there,” said Johnson. “So you’d have to spend a lot of money to find a flat piece of land. Even more tricky is where does it fit in the 10-year master plan for all of the facilities and future growth.”