If he were a player, we know what would happen to him.

Damon Evans was arrested for DUI last night.  That ain’t good.

Not sure how that scores in EDSBS‘ Fulmer Cup…

(h/t Bulldogs Blog)

Kiffin watch: do you feel like I do?

You get a Junior twofer today, courtesy of Tennessee’s newest signee, punter Matt Darr.

It’s Darr’s road to Knoxville that’s interesting:  he’s from California and originally signed with Fresno State.  When the special teams coach left Fresno State to join the Laner at USC, Darr requested his release from FSU and it was granted.  However, he didn’t follow the coach to Southern Cal, but elected instead to travel many Dooley-hours and play for Tennessee.

Why, you may ask?  It’s pretty simple.

“I know you guys really don’t like Lane Kiffin; I guess I feel the same way,” said Darr, who added that USC’s recent NCAA sanctions were also a drawback to playing for USC. “It didn’t strike me as the most appealing place to be once the new staff got in there.”

I wonder if it’s the start of a trend.

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Hey, big spender.

There’s an interesting piece at Fanhouse about how much D-1 schools spent on their football programs in the 2008-9 school year.  Check out the breakdown for the SEC:

SEC

School	Expenses (in millions)
1. Auburn	$28.80
2. Alabama	$26.44
3. Tennessee	$22.96
4. Florida	$22.86
5. Louisiana State	$22.74
6. South Carolina	$19.88
7. Georgia	$19.83
8. Arkansas	$18.30
9. Vanderbilt	$14.18
10. Kentucky	$13.24
11. Mississippi State	$12.85
12. Mississippi	$9.51

Ole Miss’ total was the third-lowest overall in D-1.  That’s pretty good bang for the buck, considering that the season culminated in a trip to the Cotton Bowl.

All Auburn got for what it spent was Tony Franklin.

UGA Football Scholarship Distribution

If you’re trying to get a feel for Georgia’s general areas of interest in shaping the class of 2011, this chart at UGASports.com should come in handy.

“Just like with any other sport…”

Stewart Mandel manages to articulate something about an extended college football playoff that’s spot on:

… Reasonable minds may disagree as to whether a playoff would devalue the regular season, but the reality is, a playoff would completely alter fans’ standards for success. Just like with any other sport, any season in which your team doesn’t qualify for the playoffs would be deemed a failure. Which means, even with a 16-team playoff, roughly 85 percent of the country will be disappointed every season. And if you happen to be a fan of a team that perennially misses the playoff — which, within some BCS conferences, might be eight out of 12 teams — it stands to reason that your interest in the sport would wane.

Conference commissioners must look out for the welfare of all their teams, not just the elite ones. They know they’ll never have it better than they do with the current system, which creates (mostly) meaningful postseason opportunities — and thus, maintains seasonlong interest — for the vast majority of their teams. Playoff or no playoff, Texas will be fine. Texas Tech will not. In fact, in a true March Madness-style playoff, in which every conference gets a berth, it’s not inconceivable that Boise State, much like Memphis or Gonzaga in basketball, would become a more lucrative property to television networks than two-thirds of the current BCS-conference members.

Actually, that is how I would define “devaluing the regular season”.

Kiffin watch: won’t get fooled again

I love the righteous backtracking about Junior and Bryce Brown that the Tennessee media is indulging in these days.  Here’s Dave Hooker on former UT wide receiver Todd Campbell:

“I was not the biggest Lane Kiffin fan,” Campbell said with a chuckle on the News Sentinel’s radio show, The Sports Page. “Me and Lane? Nah.”

The bad blood dates back to last summer, when Campbell was abruptly informed that his No. 11 jersey had been given to incoming freshman tailback Bryce Brown.

“I didn’t get asked,” Campbell said of the number switch. “That was a situation where I come back in June and there’s a note on my locker that says you’ve been moved to ‘No. 85’. This is your combination to your (new) locker.”

Where was the indignation at the time it happened?  It took a backseat to winning the recruiting wars, of course.  And not just with the media.

… Campbell didn’t mind the switch per se, especially since the promised jersey number likely helped the Vols land Brown, who many considered the top prospect in the nation in 2009.

David Climer works himself up into a lather over the Laner and Brown, as well.

… Note, please, that none of this makes Brown a bad person. To the contrary, he seems to be a bright, pleasant young man as well as a talented football player. There’s no way he really was the No. 1 prospect in the nation as a high school senior, but that’s the fault of some recruiting know-it-alls, not Brown.

Meanwhile, we wait for closure.

This is more ugly residue from Lane Kiffin’s 14-month reign of error. Brown was considered Kiffin’s biggest recruit, and he came with strings attached.

Kiffin knew he couldn’t unseat senior Montario Hardesty as the Vols’ No. 1 tailback in favor of a freshman without risking a player rebellion, but he inserted Brown at No. 2 even though many believed Tauren Poole deserved the spot.

At the conclusion of spring practice, Poole said it was “nice to get a fair shot from these coaches,” an indication that he felt he was the odd man out in ’09.

“I deserved to be behind Montario last season,” Poole said. “But there were just some things that were out of my control.”

Translation: Kiffin made some promises when he recruited Brown.

He had to pay up with playing time.

Again, where was all this in the media when it was happening?  All we heard then were gleeful observations about Kiffin’s plans for world domination.

Which brings us to Seantrel Henderson, missing in action at Southern Cal.  And, yes, while you have to wonder what Junior’s and Coach O’s sales pitch was like – particularly since Henderson and his dad expressed concerns throughout the recruiting process about the possibility of NCAA sanctions – you’ve got to give the kid some credit for having the sense to take another look at whether it’s worth buying into the hype.  As the old saying goes, fool me once…