Admit it – you’re just like most of us who won’t admit that out of the corner of our eye we check out that car accident that we drive by on the freeway.
So it is with Tennessee football these days. You can’t help but look, right?
Here are a few tidbits for this morning.
- In Pahokee, they’re still waiting for that public apology. And as much as Junior is ready for that to go away, he’s going to have to deal with it in one form or fashion for this simple reason: Thompson sends upwards of a dozen kids to play Division I college football every year, and is stacked with another crop of prospects for 2010, including receiver De’Joshua Johnson, who has already received an offer from Florida.
- One other thing about Tennessee’s recruitment of Richardson that isn’t sitting well with Pahokee’s coach is that they went around him to recruit the kid. “It was offensive to me that they didn’t show the courtesy of calling. The recruiting aspect of it, as long as they’re not breaking rules and bashing somebody, I don’t have anything to say to them. But they damn sure should come through and say, ‘Hey I’m Coach Gran. I’m recruiting your player.’”
- Paul Finebaum thinks it’s already time for Tennessee to cut its losses.
- And SI.com’s Andy Staples scores with the analogy of the day.
… The more I thought about Kiffin’s performance Thursday, the more it reminded me of watching professional wrestling as a kid. To hype a big pay-per-view match, the combatants would grab the mike each broadcast and boast at one another. The more outrageous their statements, the more likely I was to try to watch the match through the scrambled signal, because my mom wasn’t about to let me spend $19.95 to watch wrasslin’. In 30 seconds Thursday, Kiffin did what no recruiting class ever could. He inserted Tennessee into the national conversation…
Get The Picture 
If it weren’t for Lame Kitten we wouldn’t have anything good to talk about. Funny, most new coaches talk about schemes and how certain players fit in to the system. Lame spends more time dumping ammo over into other SEC coaches bunkers to be used against him later. Early prediction in Lame’s first SEC game
Turds 75
Kittens 0
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far be it from me to defend Lane Kiffen, but someone explain to me exactly WHY a high school football coach thinks he gets to completely control the recruitment of one of his players?
The kid’s parents? Absolutely. And certainly, I suppose good PR would suggest a meeting with the HS coach. I just dont get coaches (like the guy at Tucker HS in Dekalb County, or the guy at the freshman Miami QB’s old HS) saying “None of my players will ever go to that school again.” I mean, who are these guys? If I grew up in Tucker and I idolized Patrick Pass and Thomas Brown, and I want to play at UGA, why should my HS coach think he can keep me from going there?
I know most HS coaches have good intentions, and I’m sure most of them care about their guys. I just dont get why they think they own them.
Now, in Kiffin’s case, the HS coach is absolutely right. So, maybe I have it all wrong.
😉
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Well, if you read the guy’s quote, he’s not insisting on control. He’s just asking for common courtesy. And even now, it’s not like he’s threatened to cut UT off from his kids, as is the case with Tucker’s HC.
What I’m curious about is why Gran felt the need to avoid letting the coach know he was there.
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I’ll admit it and take it another step further.
This rubber necker’s two cents – I hope UT keeps KiffyBaby for a long time. Al Davis is like the poker player that just backed out of a miserable hand to see another dealt.
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GWOL (Global War on Lane) status report, 10 February 2009:
Somewhere inside an underground bunker deep inside the Green Zone in Knoxville:
0700: Monte calls the daily meeting of the Department of Fatherland Security to order and makes Lane take muster. All present and accounted for. Some close calls but no casualties reported overnight.
Monte tells his troopers that Coach O got some very interesting backdoor intelligence yesterday but they had to get a translator to get it out of Coach O because O reportedly skipped the first class in his English as a Second Language course.
Monte introduces to his troopers the translator, a UT student from Indochina named, You’re Not Dien Binh Phu-in’ Me, who is a student mentor for English as a Second Language students. Monte tells his troopers that Indochina isn’t exactly South Louisiana but it’s close enough for purposes of this meeting.
The student graciously thanks Monte, introduces himself to the troopers and tells them to just call him Dien Binh Phu for short. Dien Binh Phu tells the troopers that he is glad to translate Coach O for them and that he has plenty of time to do so because Dien Binh Phu is only a triple major in Nuclear Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Astrophysics. The troopers, especially Lane, have glazed disinterested looks in their eyes.
Dien Binh says that Coach O said that AD Mike Hamilton was trying to concoct a maneuver called “Operation Reverse Valkerie” or something like that and that op could conceivably put Lane within the strike zone as early as the SEC Spring meetings in Destin.
Hearing Lane’s name, Lane quickly sits at attention and raises his hand. Monte calls on him. Lane requests, “Permission to speak, Sir!” Monte says, “Permission granted, kid.”
Lane says, “I want to do an operation too and call it something cool like ‘Blitzkreig to Baghdad’.
Monte throws his whipstick at Lane and yells at him, “You’re already there dumb*** because you’re in an underground bunker deep inside the Green Zone in Knoxville!”
Lane looks away, hurt. Coach O smirks. Lane, feeling bad, stares at wall inside underground bunker. Monte asks his kid, “What’s wrong now, Lane?”. Lane replies, “I wish there were windows in this meeting room.” Monte asks, “Why?”. Lane says, “So I could look outside when I’m bored.”
Monte looks for something else to throw at Lane. Cannot find anything. Defensive playbook is too heavy to throw. Monte asks Dien Binh Phu if his parents or grandparents ever taught him how to carry out a waterboarding session. Dien Binh Phu says, “Sure. Who doesn’t know how to do that?”.
Incoming mortar fire disguised to sound like incoming office phone call so Monte quickly adjourns meeting, orders gassers for all and tells his troopers that this is not the end of this meeting and that it will, by God, be continued.
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Re: “What I’m curious about is why Gran felt the need to avoid letting the coach know he was there.”
Probably because UT knew that if Gran had notified the coach, Urban would have known about it immediately, if not sooner.
I’ve seen Nu’Keese Richardson from Pahokee (Class 2-B) play a couple of times against an established school (Class 6 – largest classification) that is in the playoffs every year and Pahokee usually wins by 20-30 points. Pahokee has trouble finding teams to play in its own classification so it always has to play bigger schools to fill its schedule. Even though Nu’Keese is small, he is great. He will do less damage against us being coached by Lane at UT than he would being coached by Urban at Florida.
Recruiting in the Pahokee- Belle Glade geographical area reminds me of how LA Chinatown looked in the movie set in the 1930’s, where even if you’re Nicholson, you still don’t know what’s going on. It apparently takes some time to get established and know your way around. Once Miami seemed to dominate recruiting players out of that area, then FSU, and now its almost exclusively Florida territory.
I was amazed that UGA was able to sign Rantavious Wooten out of Belle Glade. Don’t know for sure but that may have been the first recruit, or one of the few recruits, that Richt has able to get from that goldmine of a recruiting area despite Richt’s years at FSU.
Lane and Gran could only have been thinking let’s do a surgical strike, steal one from Urban for shock effect and either forget about the area or go back, hat in hand, help ’em chase down some rabbits and try to get UT back in good graces.
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I think Georgia’s been a little gun shy about that area ever since the Calloway business landed the school on probation over a decade ago.
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Senator, thanks for reminder. It’s all coming back to me now. Had effectively blocked those fun times out of my mind.
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For the record:
I hate the word ’embattled.’
If Finebaum wasn’t such a smart-ass(which I love in a sports writer)–I would have stopped reading as soon as I saw it.
Sorry, just wanted to get that off my chest.
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