Ultimate pot meets kettle moment

Gregg Doyle Doyel calls Finebaum an idiot over the Meyer-to-Notre Dame story.

Yeah, but…

I’m probably being a jerk for pointing this out, but, after reading Hale’s article and blog post about the new attitude imbuing the program this year, all the mentoring going on and the emphasis on hard work and extra work, my first thought was, that’s nice, but where was this last year when you needed it?

Along those lines, check out something Carlton Thomas said.

… We’re getting in there to watch film, and that’s something we really didn’t do a lot of before. A lot of units are even coming in in the mornings to watch film.

Feel free to slam me in the comments.

Getting their money’s worth

The Mobile Press-Register has a series of articles posted looking at the cost of recruiting in the SEC over the past three years.  It’s not a completely clear cut comparison, because (as is acknowledged in the story) it’s hard to figure out how much spending on facilities to attribute to recruiting, not to mention how much a coach’s salary to allocate to his skills as a recruiter.  Still, if you just look at the recruiting budgets of every school in the conference except for Vanderbilt, the sole private school member, it’s an entertaining read.

Here’s the three-year average spent on football recruiting.

Tennessee: $1,154,802
Auburn: $705,125
LSU: $662,772
Florida: $599,818
Georgia: $521,174
Arkansas: $499,578
Ole Miss: $410,608
Kentucky: $307,571
Miss. State: $286,467
Alabama: $285,649
S. Carolina: $273,909
Vanderbilt: N/A

That Tennessee tops the list isn’t surprising, given all that we hear about how the Vols have to recruit nationally.  But Auburn number two?  (Although if you look at the recruiting class rankings over that time, it’s arguable that the Tigers got better bang for their buck than UT did.)  It’s also intruiging that South Carolina finds itself last in the conference in spending, not that Spurrier’s classes in that time have been too bad on paper.

Anyway, more to come is promised, including a look at where things are headed, given the regime changes at Tennessee and Auburn.  Interesting, isn’t it, that the two schools already spending the most have decided to double-down on their recruiting emphasis?  Let’s let a high school coach have the last word.

Said Gadsden City High School football coach Joe Billingsley: “The day it becomes more important than actually playing the game, it will be the downfall of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Sunday morning buffet

Just a few niblets for you:

• “SEC on ESPN” – a logo, a state of mind.
• The Nick Saban Scholarship Watch is alive and well.
• What is with these absurd comparisons of inferior coaches to Pete Carroll?  Now it’s Ron Zook, “the Pete Carroll of the Midwest”.  Who actually says stuff like that?
• If the GPOOE™ has to use not being a unanimous pick in the SEC preseason coaches’ vote to motivate himself, Florida’s in worse shape than I thought.
• Speaking of Tebow, how’s this for a creepy comment from his head coach?  “He’s my Vitamin B-12.  If I’m not there with him, I call him every day.”