It’s a deep buffet today, folks.
- The SEC is getting close to releasing its 2012 football schedule.
- “I ate so many ribs, there was no way I could have practiced later in the day.”
- Another day, another “Mark Richt reaches out to a school that needs him more than he needs it” rumor.
- If you look at Maryland football as a controlled experiment on how to run a program completely into the ground, then this move makes complete sense.
- LSU’s president says that we’ll know American research universities are in a real state of crisis when some of them start giving up football.
- Here’s a handy guide to all the comings and goings on SEC coaching staffs so far.
- Mark Schlabach reports that Todd Graham resigned his position at Pitt without meeting with his athletic director. Pat Forde sticks a few knives in Graham, as well.
- Hugh Freeze undoes one of the Nuttster’s grayshirt deals.
Get The Picture 
So, you mean Richt didn’t reach out to Penn State to right the ship, because as you know…according to Penn State fans, everyone has been beating down their door to become the next coach and lead them into the future. I mean, who wanted to take over a team where Federal, State, Local, NCAA, and Big Ten investigators are crawling all over campus. It would be an honor, nea a privledge to coach Penn State…Richt should feel so lucky that Penn State has chosen him.
LikeLike
That’s got NDNation written all over it.
LikeLike
PETA and OSHA will be arriving shortly.
LikeLike
Don’t forget about us.
LikeLike
So did Pat Forde leave ESPN? Or was he forced out? I don’t remember there being a story, obviously not everyone can leave ESPN like Feldman but I thought I would of least seen a story on it
LikeLike
He left on his own. Got a great offer from Yahoo!
Check the SI podcast he, Feldman and Amy Nelson (all ex-ESPNers) were on just yesterday.
LikeLike
I think you will see a lot of legit journalist jumping ship at ESPN as the WWL’s journalistic cred continues to shrink.
LikeLike
They’ve been jumping ship ever since Bruce Feldman was suspended (and subsequently left for CBS). Nobody with a shred of integrity there can understand why ESPN felt it had to protect Craig James over the whole Mike Leach affair.
LikeLike
Richt is involved in secret talks to become the next coach at…….. Hawaii. Keep it quiet.
LikeLike
I heard he was engaged in secret talks to become the next coach at Georgia. Feel free to circulate that.
LikeLike
As soon as Todd Graham was announced as Arizona State HC he heard about an opening at Pitt and immediately contacted his agent.
LikeLike
Interestingly enough, that’s one of the few jobs Richt has publicly said was one he considered while he was OC at FSU (the other I know of is Missouri).
LikeLike
ASU or Pitt?
LikeLike
I think it was Pitt, though I don’t intend to supplant the good stoopnagle’s thunder on this.
LikeLike
The other job he has publicly mentioned being interested in while at Florida State was UVA.
LikeLike
You are wrong on UMD and Mike Locksley. He was a great get for them. One of the absolute best recruiters around that area. UNM was a bad place, fit etc. but he will do very well back home.
LikeLike
He’s a great recruiter (esp. in the DC area) who can’t coach and has anger management issues out the wazoo.
LikeLike
Nobody’s perfect.
LikeLike
I am.
LikeLike
Me too.
LikeLike
I’ve got a statue.So there.
LikeLike
So, Mark Richt is supposedly just dying to walk away from a team that won 10 games this year and is LOADED for next year… a recruiting class that is stacking up to potentially be great… just to go to Penn State where he’ll be answering questions about a gay pedophilic sex scandal for years, where the athletic department budget is about to get pillaged by lawyers, where he’ll be in the shadow of a legend, and where he’ll have to convince recruits to come there despite several years of losing, and all of the horrble things they’ve read in the paper? Not to be coarse, but I wouldn’t want to sign up to play there if I had better options if it meant I was going to have to use those showers. Penn Staters need to embrace reality, they’ve got some lean, painful years ahead. Oh, and by the way, they’ve been used to paying a football coach well below market value for ten years. I don’t think they’d be willing to pay a top BCS coach what he’s worth. Penn State, your next head coach is currently coaching a football team in FCS or coordinating someone’s offense or defense right now. That’s just the way it is.
LikeLike
Damn your cold reality. It is true, though. They’re screwed.
LikeLike
Yup. And while their fans are good folks, the actual people in the building? They deserve it.
LikeLike
Trust me on this, their “fans” are not such good folks. If you placed them in a sack with all those troglodyte tOSU people and plucked one out, without regalia of course, you would be hard pressed to distinguish between them.
LikeLike
They all would have P-O on their foreheads? Man, that’s some hostile gentiles.
LikeLike
Not to mention the outrage from a faculty community with an inflated sense of self-worth about the significant increase in head coach pay over Paterno’s $1 mil per it’s going to take to get anyone PSU thinks they should hire.
LikeLike
Bah. Read through comments first, Stoop.
File to: Redundancy Department of Redundancy Department.
LikeLike
Excellent mea culpa, Stoop.
LikeLike
But no one knows proper shower protocol like SOD and I’m willing to bet that UT would subsidize his base if Penn asked.
LikeLike
Richt is very well respected everywhere in college football. IMHO if anyone could turn that program around and heal that community it would be Richt. They don’t just need a coach, they need a _good_ person. A guy that can bring high moral character and leadership into the position. Richt has that reputation.
I would not be surprised if PSU went _all in_ to try to get him.
How the fortunes have turned for CMR. From Septembers hot seat, to every major coaching search’s sweetheart rumor. Sure doesn’t hurt his bargaining power.
LikeLike
Really liked not seeing Georgia anywhere on that ESPN list of coaching comings/goings in the SEC.
LikeLike
As did I.
LikeLike
Graham seems like a jerk and someone that I’d never want my son to play for. The NCAA has got to allow players to transfer without having to sit out a year if the coach leaves. Obviously you don’t want a situation where a coach leaves and takes 1/2 the team with him, but how can a guy stay at a school for 12 months, then move to greener pastures and leave all the guys that signed with him stuck at the old school. Maybe allow the players to transfer anywhere other than where that coach goes without having to sit out and if they follow the coach, then they have to sit a season. Imagine being a quarterback and having someone like Paul Johnson take over the program. The NCAA needs to find a better solution for this.
LikeLike
What? Leaving after one year is perfectly OK. So is taking players with you. If you’re smart enough and act fast enough you can get’um to follow you without them ever enrolling at the first school and you don’t even have to worry about that sit out 1 season nonsense. Hey ED! You agree with that, right!
LikeLike
Coach Kiffin, I like the cut of your jib, Sir.
LikeLike
I have said from day 1 of the PSU scandle that CMR would be a great fit. No other coach in the nation would be able to sooth booth parties (the football fanbase and the university admin). It is not unthinkable that he would walk away from UGA. I was wrong about his ability to turn thing around this season, and I would be disappointed if he left. That being said, I pull for the Dawgs, not the head coach.
LikeLike
Two words: Bobby. Bowden. How awesome/hilarious would THAT be?
LikeLike
Bowden would not work. He is simply too much of a football guy. Everyone knows that football is 3rd on Richt’s priority list (God 1st and family 2nd). While he is a good
D-1 football coach, he is better known for being a man of good character and virtue. I am not sure you could design a better man for the Penn State job. I hope he stays, but I would not fault him for leaving. He appears to have reached his full potential with us.
LikeLike
That’s crazy-talk about full potential. And PSU needs someone more akin to either a shaman, with full mystical complements, or a cossack who will (metaphorically) burn the entire township to the ground before starting from scratch.
LikeLike
Yeah, don’t forget the former iconic coach calls that Valley home. Before it’s all over with and considering the ups and downs of McCleary’s testimony, some torches have been extinguished, corks have been placed on some pitchfork tines and the only complicit criminal will be convicted only by his own lawyer. The divisiveness of the fanbase hasn’t even started since the shock set in, but it’s coming. Shit has been smeared throughout Happy Valley as if the Grinch took a dump there. Some accusations and accusers will not find the courtroom and the extent of the final prosecution won’t be known for a year. This thing will drag on like Mike Adams took refuge there. The victims, the perps, the U , the Valley, the state prosecutors; all will be one big mish-mash of everyone else’s problem such that the football team will die of memory attrition. Not an environment for anyone to start a new life except an evangelical like ….wait for it….Bobby Bowden.
LikeLike
You speak to the situation and societal undercurrents like a learned follower of “mob-think” and American sports, at large. I like the cut of your jib here, Cojones. BTW, Tonto told me to ask for Scout back.
LikeLike
I think you are right about that, the PSU situation demands more than just a good football coach, the fact they could get both with CMR is definitely worth a mention. Now I don’t think CMR is going anywhere, until he decides to leave coaching, but Penn State is a train wreck in a unique way. Of course, there is a lot of God’s work needed in Happy Valley these days. Can I get an Amen Brother?
LikeLike
Amen Brah!
LikeLike
The LSU President knows something about football. He was the UF President from 1990, when football was invented, until 1999, when he was runnoft.
LikeLike
“He appears to have reached his full potential with us”
This is going to need further explanation. Richt has found an excellent defensive coordinator who has built a young defense full of hard hitting marauders. He has installed an innovative offensive wrinkle (the no huddle) which allowed the Dawgs to run more plays per game than Oregon. He has recruited significant talent, and gets top tier QBs like Mila Kunis gets marraige proposals. Georgia now has facilities that rival any in the SEC. How has he reached his full potential? There’s no way he’s going to win more? Really?
LikeLike
If I were PSU trustees and crap keeps hitting the fan daily and our idol’s feet of clay are cracking and I have a program badly in need of stability I would certainly look at Richt. If I were Richt and had shown nothing but loyalty to the University and was rewarded by a large percentage of my fan base calling for my head on a platter I would look at Penn State. Think about it, great academics, long tradition, plenty of money, and a train wreck for a CFB program. Richt turns that around and he is a genius. It is easier to turn around a train wreck than maintain a winning program for decades. There is another bonus, if he fails all the pundits say the poor guy never had a chance there anyway.
LikeLike
Mike Sherman. Definitely.
LikeLike