“But that kind of got out of our control.”

By the time everybody in the state of Arkansas gets done weaseling out of responsibility for the insanity of Hatgate, Renee Gork will have been found to have fired herself.

Big men at a big position

I was invited to take part in my first podcast – at the fine Oklahoma blog, Blatant Homerism (yes, the subject of a certain former defensive coordinator did come up) – and one of the subjects for discussion was the state of Georgia’s defensive line.  My thought was that DeAngelo Tyson had the lead in starting at the tackle position, but that the coaches seemed to hint that they wanted an excuse to play him at the end position.  That “excuse”, of course, would have to be confidence in Kwame Geathers/Justin Anderson’s ability to succeed in manning the tackle spot.

After the interview ended, I fired up Twitter, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t come across this story:

During his first two years at Georgia, Justin “Bean” Anderson made 12 starts as an offensive lineman. If the season started today, Anderson would make his 13th start — but his first as a defensive lineman.

Anderson, who converted to defense before spring practice, is in line to start at nose tackle, defensive line coach Rodney Garner said after Wednesday’s practice. DeAngelo Tyson, a starter last year at defensive tackle, would switch over to end.

Needless to say, that’s good news.  Even if the coaches are still sounding tentative about it.

“We are hoping (Anderson) he will continue to improve. He is not where we want him to be and where we need him to be,” Garner said. “I think Bean’s come along; he’s ahead of Geathers. But we need for Geathers to come along and keep working, too, because he has some ability.”

Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said Anderson and Geathers have both stood out.

“Kwame and Bean have done a nice job, I noticed them in Saturday’s scrimmage, and that’s a good thing,” Grantham said. “The closer you are to the ball, the faster things happen, and as the nose, you’re right there. You have to react to the blocking schemes, and they’ve done well.”

If Grantham and Garner can fashion a functioning rotation at tackle, that’s a big step in putting a defense together that can play an effective 3-4 in the aggressive way Grantham wants.  Keep your fingers crossed.

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Thursday morning buffet

Should be something in here you’ll like.

• Brent Musburger welcomes Mike Leach to the profession (and probably hopes to knock back a cold one or two with him later).
• Meet Les Miles, the incredible two-faced coach.  (Okay, so it’s not that incredible.)
• Evidently the hot seat meme hasn’t made it to Montana.
• Marlon Brown is starting to intrigue me.
• Dawg porn:  Dean Legge interviews Mr. Aggressive, Todd Grantham.
• This interview will come as a complete shock to you.
• Funny, you don’t look Tebowish.  (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
• The AJ-C discovers Georgia’s turnover margin story.

Meanwhile, in the land of the dipshits

In what has been the most bizarre of offseasons, nothing should surprise any of us at this point, but the shenanigans in the Mountain West and WAC in the wake of BYU’s decision to leave the former to become an independent in football and play all other sports as a member of the latter have been something to behold.

In what should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, the second of two schools offered official invitations to the Mountain West Conference has responded in the affirmative.

Citing multiple unnamed sources, the Reno Gazette-Journal is reporting that Nevada has accepted the Mountain West’s invitation and will leave the WAC following the 2010-2011 school year…

… With the addition of Fresno State, Nevada and Boise State — along with the definite loss of Utah and the potential loss of BYU — the MWC would become a ten-team league: the three new schools, plus current members Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU, UNLV and Wyoming.

It’s like watching Mary’s Lemonade Stand attempt a hostile takeover of Jimmy’s Newspaper Route.

By the way, that Thompson presser didn’t really add much clarity to the situation.  I guess we’ll have to wait to find out what the suddenly mysterious Gary Patterson claims to know:

“Let’s see what happens in the next two weeks before you make any judgments, see what happens on the national landscape. Things I know that maybe you don’t know.”

This is all small potatoes for the brain trust at Boise State, though.  School president Bob Kustra and athletic director Gene Bleymaier have found much bigger fish to fry.

Kustra:
“We’re doing a study of non-conference scheduling in Division I football. There is a fairly compelling case to be made that the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10 over the years have controlled the scheduling. All the large conferences … What Gene will tell you, there’s an overwhelming number of home games for the big guys but no home-and-home. We’ve been able to get a home-and-home with Oregon and Oregon State. We want to propose to the NCAA a mandated home-and-home scheduling arrangement for I-A non-conference football games. Why should Boise State go to Georgia, but more than likely they’re not going to return it?

Bleymaier:
“I think we’ve really dropped the ball as an organization. The NCAA could mandate this at any time. Oregon, Oregon State are return games. Ole Miss (next year), Washington, Arkansas and Arizona State are not. It’s so simple to legislate.

“We’ll play anybody in the country home-and-home. You’ve got to do a better job of scheduling. You want us to go play three non-conference games on the road and they don’t have to come here. Texas isn’t going to do that, Oklahoma isn’t going to do that, USC isn’t going to do that, Florida isn’t going to do that, Ohio State isn’t going to do that, nobody’s going to do that.”

My first thought upon reading that:  who the hell do these guys think they are? There’s an old line SEC fans used to throw out to describe Florida – the arrogance of Notre Dame combined with the tradition of Vanderbilt.  Well, these guys make the Gators look more humble than Mother Teresa.  “Not only does Bleymaier believe his program is beyond having to play those one-and-done games, but he plans to introduce NCAA legislation to mandate return games.” Beyond having to play? Well, la-di-freakin’-da.

My second thought:  for all the talk about antitrust violations these guys throw out when it comes to the BCS, they don’t have a clue about antitrust law.  The NCAA isn’t looking to have its ass handed to it in antitrust court, fellas.  They’ve been there and done that before.

Of course, it would likely never get that far, because five minutes after the NCAA announced such a rule, the Big Six conferences would take their ball and go home, for many of the reasons that Year2 cites in this post.

Of course, that’s when visionaries like Orrin Hatch can step in.  Look for this in your nearest Congressional hearing soon.