Can somebody tell this man to shut up?

I have no idea what Jim Delany means when he says this.

“We believe that college football has the greatest regular season in the country, not college basketball . College basketball has the greatest postseason in the country.”

Pardon me, but that’s complete and utter bullshit.  Unless you sincerely believe – which I doubt Delany does for a second – that college basketball needs the “greatest postseason” and college football doesn’t.  The logic escapes me.  The arrogance doesn’t, though.

In fact, it’s enhanced by this:

” College basketball has lost some meaning in the regular season. We do everything we can to make it important, but it is not what it was if you go back 25 years ago.

“Everyone but CBS on the network level has left college basketball . There is one meaningful must-see game in college basketball .”

Look, it’s one thing for me to say that.  And I don’t disagree with the comment.  But for a guy who has to promote and sell the sport as product to his conference’s fans and to the broadcast outlets who carry it, well, just, damn.

What a first-class jerk.

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Kiffin watch: he said “he said”, he said

Oh, who to believe in this “gas pumping” story!

Junior denies saying it.  Orgeron now says he was in the room with Kiffin during the conversation and didn’t hear “anything as such”.

Even more interestingly, the Laner now claims to have called Jeffery after the story was published and elicited a denial from the kid that he ever told ESPN’s Chris Low anything of the sort.

On the other hand… we’ve got a story where two members of the South Carolina coaching staff confirmed the comment with Jeffery, his teammate and his high school coach the day after the kid’s commitment.

If it’s hard to figure out who’s telling the truth here, it would seem to be worth focusing on Low’s role.  Kiffin is essentially accusing the reporter (and ESPN by extension) of making the story up.  Yet, buried in the South Carolina story is this line:  “According to Low, Kiffin did not respond to requests to comment for the original story.” If that’s true, it undercuts Junior’s spin in a pretty devastating way.

In any event, it’s clear this puppy’s got some legs and won’t go away for a while.  It’ll be interesting to see how far anyone wants to push the story.  Eric Mack’s recruiting should be fun to follow, too.

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UPDATE: Low links to both stories in this post, without comment.  You wonder if he’s biding his time or biting his tongue.