Let’s make a deal.

Nothing surprises me anymore… but it’s a nice touch that Mississippi State was offered a discount.

Seriously, kudos to John Bond and MSU for doing the right thing.  It’ll be interesting to see if this story has any legs to it.

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UPDATE: Barrett Sallee lists some good reasons to be skeptical that Auburn’s in any real trouble right now.  And if this is true…

According to the reports, Auburn has known about this since July. If Auburn had any doubt that Newton was going to be ruled ineligible at any point during the 2010 season, they shouldn’t have – and wouldn’t have – played him…

then Newton isn’t going to be held out by Auburn unless the NCAA mandates it.  Auburn’s already all in.

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UPDATE #2: Here’s a weird comment from John Bond:  “I reported the conversation to the Mississippi State Athletic Department. I was told by the Athletic Department that Mississippi State would not respond to the overture that was made to me, and that Mississippi State would continue to recruit Cam Newton as it does any other football recruit.”

So the school is told about funny business going on with Newton’s recruitment, won’t pay to play, but still continued to recruit the kid?  Hmmm…

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UPDATE #3: Pete Thamel’s write up on the story is worth a read.  This part sounds interesting:

… While Newton was at Florida, Mullen served as his offensive coordinator and his quarterback coach. Newton said he wanted to attend Mississippi State because of his relationship with Mullen, but also told Sports Illustrated that he ultimately left the decision to his father. Cecil Newton told The Montgomery Advertiser that he didn’t want his son to attend Mississippi State “to be a rented mule.”

Mullen declined comment via text message Thursday night, but told Rivals.com Radio in a recent interview about Newton, “That’s a long, long, long story for another day, I’m sure.”

Mullen said after a follow-up question, “I’ll hold off on that, it’ll be in the book.”

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UPDATE #4: Heh.

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File away for future reference

You may want to bookmark this link and come back to it in a couple of weeks.  It’s a detailed breakdown of the Clemson-Georgia Tech game, with some very good insight as to where Tech is having problems this year on both sides of the ball.

What should be of particular interest to us is that Clemson’s DC played some 3-4 in that game, with some success.

Signs of life: the post-Martinez recovery

I understand most of the grousing about how this season has gone.  Some of it I agree with.  But one thing I don’t get is the assertion made by more than a few that the defense hasn’t improved from last season.  Seth Emerson notes a few statistical areas that have gotten better in 2010:

… Georgia ranks 28th in the nation in total defense. Through nine games, its average yards against the pass and run have each improved from last year.

After the run defense was embarrassed at South Carolina, the Bulldogs have managed to climb near the top of the SEC rankings in that category and rank 18th nationally.

In the final two seasons under Willie Martinez, Georgia gave up at least 40 points in five games. This year under Grantham, the best an opponent has done is last week when Florida got 34, helped by an overtime field goal.

Again, that’s with a new scheme, a new secondary philosophy and the attendant problems with fitting round personnel pegs into square 3-4 defense holes.  Not to say that things are perfect, or can’t get better, but that certainly smells like progress to me (especially with regard to Emerson’s last point).

The topper on Chokegate

If there’s a contest to see who can write the most over-the-top response to Todd Grantham’s Crime of the Century stupid choking gesture, it’s officially over.  John Clay has managed to make Tony Barnhart look reasonable by comparison.  It’s not simply that he’s called for Grantham to be fired, or even that he’s tossed out this O tempora! O mores! plea:

… Have college athletics become so mercenary, so dollar-oriented it would let something so egregious — a coach of one team making insulting gestures and screaming obscenities at a player on the other team — slide? Will we excuse anything and everything in the name of winning?

No, what closes the deal is that he actually attempts to find some equivalence (“On a related note…”) between the incident and the tragic death at Notre Dame of Declan Sullivan.

Unless someone tries to compare Grantham to Osama bin Laden, I think we’re done here.

“Potentially the defendants are your own clients.”

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff hasn’t given up his quest to sue the BCS on anti-trust grounds, but he’s got a couple of tough road blocks to overcome:  one, Utah can’t afford the suit and two, AGs from other states aren’t likely to join in because in many cases that would result in them suing the major universities and school presidents that they ordinarily represent.

Hence Shurtleff’s lobbying of Obama’s Justice Department to take up the cause… sometimes you’ve got to put your principles to the side when it comes to college football.  Go Utes!