Mike Slive’s sense of priorities

I’m not a lawyer, although I play one… whoops, almost forgot, I am a lawyer.  That doesn’t mean I grok Mike Slive’s self-serving BS about the Newton decision any better.

“The comments that we need to send a message should not be on the back of a student-athlete under the facts of this case where the established facts show that he was not aware of what his father did and he never received anything,” said Slive, referring to Newton’s father, Cecil Newton, who attempted to shop his son to Mississippi State for $180,000.

“[Cam Newton] is at a different institution than the one the father solicited, and the institution that he’s playing at, there’s no evidence that they did anything wrong. The message is better sent through improved legislation, clarifying and strengthening legislation to deal with this issue, and that’s what we’re going to do within these next few weeks.”

Slive made it clear that he fully supports the NCAA reinstatement committee’s decision.

“They took into consideration the No. 1 priority, which is the welfare of the student-athlete,” Slive said. “That was the No. 1 priority based on the facts of this case.”

That said, Slive agreed that the wording of the current NCAA legislation concerning the solicitation of a player was too vague.

“There’s no doubt that the legislation needs to be clearer so that the conduct of a father or the person involved needs to be made clearly a violation,” Slive said. “Then you work from there, and that’s what we will do. The SEC is anxious to be involved helping to create that legislation.”

What exactly is there to clarify?  Slive takes the position that penalizing the student-athlete is off the table in those cases where the student didn’t directly receive anything and didn’t know that someone else tried to solicit benefits.  And it’s not like the NCAA can regulate family members.  So what does Slive propose be done?  He doesn’t say, but my guess is that we’ll be looking at some meaningless window dressing.

Meanwhile, people much smarter than Cecil Newton will be sitting down trying to devise ways to game the system.  And they’ll succeed, too.  Because we all know what Slive’s No. 1 priority really is.

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UPDATE: And, gosh, how about this touching quote from the NCAA’s enforcement chief:

“When you’re talking about a National Collegiate Athletic Association, whose primary mission is to serve student-athlete well-being, then generally you land on the side of student-athlete welfare.”

Except at Georgia, where we didn’t land on the side of student-athlete welfare.  Student-athlete welfare landed on us.

Something I don’t get.

It’s weird, all those teams out there looking for an offensive coordinator, and there’s a perfectly serviceable one likely to be unemployed shortly, Vanderbilt’s Herb Hand.  Check out the résumé:  worked for RichRod at West Virginia, had his brain regularly picked by Chip Kelly and taught Gus Malzahn more than a few things about the spread option.

Yet you aren’t hearing anything about him as a target for hire.  (Meanwhile, Texas is rumored to be going after Boise State’s OC and half the schools in the country are chasing Dana Holgorsen.)  Like I said, strange…

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UPDATE: Here’s a hiring suggestion from Paul Myerberg.

Der bowls, der bowls

While it’s a grave disappointment to the root-for-chaos John Feinsteins of the world, this year’s BCS title game is pretty close to a no-brainer (sorry, TCU, but there’s no comparison when you factor in strength of schedule).  And it should be a good one, somewhat reminiscent of the titanic struggle between Southern Cal and Texas.

And looking at the rest of the bowl schedule, the pleasant surprise is that most of the BCS games look compelling.  TCU, third in rushing defense, gets to strut its stuff in the Rose Bowl against a Big Ten opponent that runs the ball well.  Stanford-Virginia Tech is the best matchup the Orange Bowl has had in a while.  Ryan Mallett gets a chance to avenge Michigan’s honor vicariously, as well as set Arkansas up for a big start next year, with a Sugar Bowl shot against Ohio State.  And even the worst looking of the games, the Fiesta Bowl, has the Big Game Bob factor working for it.

As for the rest of what we get, well, it’s college football, so I’m not going to knock any of it, but here are a few of the better games:

• Las Vegas Bowl. Not too long ago, Utah vs. Boise State in a bowl game would have been really big.  Even so, this should be interesting to watch, as the Broncos tangle with a semi-BCS conference team.  Both are ranked in the top 20.
• Poinsettia Bowl. Maybe I’m weird, but I always like contrasting style games.  San Diego State throws the hell out of the ball and Navy is Navy.
• Independence Bowl. Shreveport.  Georgia Tech.  Heh.
• Insight Bowl. If both Iowa and Missouri show up, this will be a good one.
• Pinstripe Bowl. Worth watching just to find out if we get our first bowl game with snow in ages.
• Sun Bowl. Hey, they’re getting the bands back together!  Not really, but what the hey.
• Chick-fil-A Bowl. It’ll be worth seeing if the OBC can rally the troops after they got plowed under in the SECCG.  At the same stadium, too.
• Capital One Bowl. Jim Delany’s honor is on the line in this one.  Can Michigan State hold the line against SEC speed and oversigning?
• Gator Bowl. Dan Mullen gets an opponent that can’t play defense and breathes a sigh of relief.
• Cotton Bowl. TAMU has had its share of crazy games this year, so Les Miles should fit right in.

The clunker of the bunch easily has to be the Holiday Bowl, which has paired up two teams that put together a 35-point blowout earlier this year at the loser’s stadium.

And, no, I couldn’t put the Liberty Bowl on that list, although I do think it will be compelling for those of us who have a stake in the game.  One thing I feel pretty certain about is that Richt doesn’t want to finish the season with the first losing record of his tenure.

Where’s Tebow?

Cam Newton may have matched Tim Tebow’s on-the-field season record of 20 passing and 20 rushing touchdowns, but he hasn’t matched the star power of the GPOOE™, at least as far as SEC fans go.

… And Auburn blowing out South Carolina drew a 6.3 overnight rating, translating to 6.3% of the 56 urban markets measured for overnights. That’s down 47% from Florida-Alabama in last year’s SEC title game and down 39% from those teams playing in the 2008 title game.

By the way, don’t miss Jimmy Johnson’s quote about Cam in the linked article.

The always good for a chuckle public Coaches Poll

It’s always fun checking these guys out when they’re forced to drop the curtain, and this year is no exception.  A few ballots of note:

• TCU got one first place vote, from Idaho’s Robb Akey.  Solidarity, brother!  Akey voted Auburn third.  He probably finds Cammy Cam Juice a little too sweet for his taste, too.
• TCU got two second place votes, from Mike Locksley and Kyle Whittingham.  More solidarity, brother!  Both voted Auburn third.
• Biggest self-promoter this year is Bo Pelini, who somehow found it in his heart to vote his three-loss squad eighth (they finished 16th in the Poll).  That led to some fairly hypocritical reshuffling on his part.  He voted one-loss Michigan State eleventh and two-loss Oklahoma State twelfth.  Best of all, he had three-loss Texas A&M, a team which beat Nebraska, all the way down at number sixteen.
• Jim Harbaugh wasn’t taking any chances, either.  He voted Stanford third, ahead of TCU, and gave Wisconsin its lowest vote, eighth.
• Ron Zook thinks Gordon Gee is the bomb:  he voted all three one-loss Big Ten teams ahead of undefeated TCU.
• Only one SEC coach didn’t vote Auburn numero uno:  Corch Meyers.
• From the awww, that’s nice department:  Mark Richt voted Central Florida number 25.
• For some reason, Howard Schnellenberger gave 7-5 Arizona a top 25 vote.

It all makes you wonder what these guys are doing on the ballots we don’t get to see.