Brat-free, baby.
- Only seven D-1 schools’ athletic departments have managed to stay in the black on their own for the past five years: Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana State, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.
- 21st century name recognition: “Although the team lost its opening round game in overtime to second-seeded Villanova University, traffic to the university’s Web site increased 40 percent and the school ranked among top trending topics on Twitter.”
- Tony Barnhart speculates about conference expansion after hearing a bunch of other people speculate about conference expansion.
- I’m guessing one of the people he didn’t talk to was Jack Swarbrick: “The only things that could make it happen are the sorts of radical change in the industry that would cause upheaval and impact a lot more (schools) than Notre Dame,” he says. “You wind up with only three conferences. You wind up with two tiers of conferences. Now, all of a sudden, it’s not three divisions in college; it’s four. It’s the big change. I don’t see that happening.”
- Making money off of open records requests.
- Gene Chizik is on the fourth warmest seat in the SEC? I obviously don’t understand how Pete Fiutak’s scale is calibrated.
- Last year, Corch Meyers wowed the more gullible members of the press with tales of the I-formation and Tebow under center. This year, it looks like he’s opting to go with the two-quarterback story.
Get The Picture 
Pete F does not seem very in tune to what is going on in the SEC, he obviously has not spent much time in the Bayou. It is always hot down & steamy down there, but from what I hear, Les is finding it much hotter than usual!
LikeLike
Chizik lost 5 games last year, including both of their main rivalry games. Luckily falling into a New Year’s Day Bowl and finally winning over Northwestern(yawn) after trying to give it away on a dozen different occasions gave the Aubie’s something to smile about this offseason, but there is pressure for Chizik to produce more this year. If they lose 4 or 5 games again, I think it’s safe to say that a decent portion of the Auburn fan base will revert back to the “see, I told you this was a bad hire” mentality…if they ever changed that mentality to begin with.
If you look around the league, I’d have to agree with him that the first four guys on his list – Spurrier, Bobby Johnson, Richt and Chizik – are the guys under the most pressure to do considerably better this year than they did last year. Spurrier and Johnson are the only ones in the SEC whose jobs might be in jeopardy if things go bad…Spurrier needs to at least have SC in the mix for the East title and Johnson can’t go 2-10 again. UK, UT, MSU and Arky all have coaches who are in their first or second year. Nutt is coming up on his 3rd year at Ole Miss after two 9-4 seasons. The LSU, Bama and UF coaches have all won recent national titles…though Miles isn’t nearly as secure as the other two.
LikeLike
I’d drop Miles into that Bottom Four mix. Unless he does something this year his critics will be able to continue on with the taunt of him not doing anything on his own/without Saban’s players. He might not need to knock Bama off and wint het West but he has to be in contention for the at-large BCS bid if he doesn’t. 9-4 this year and he should start taking those phone calls from Michigan more seriously.
LikeLike
He says Steve Spurrier would be gone if he was any other coach. He does realize that Spurrier is the only guy in SC football to coach five years and not have one losing season?
That site lost me when they picked SC to win the conference back in 2002.
LikeLike
Maybe Pete thinks one of Chizik’s great assistant head coach troopers may just be asking for bad karma like this old-timer
http://www.theonion.com/articles/seeing-ken-griffey-jr-in-backwards-hat-now-just-de,17191/
LikeLike
Bobby Johnson is as good as it gets for Vandy. For a school that doesn’t even have an AD he is just right. Vandy is a joke but they share and share alike.
LikeLike
Pete must be slightly retarded, or like that NYT reporter, just phoned his story in without leaving home and talking with actual folks. Richt is less entrenched, and less customer satisfaction than Miles, Chizik, and Dooley? We may have found TB!
LikeLike
Pete is a Florida grad.
LikeLike
More reason the “Football makes a school” rich argument is bogus
Football money barely covers the expenses
LikeLike
hello, Florida has been in the black for years … giving money to the school ..
LikeLike