This is what happens when you get your athletic director from Duke.

So this is what things have come to.

LSU AD Joe Alleva said if Alabama wants to play Tennessee every year it could schedule a non-conference game

— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) May 30, 2012

I wonder if Missouri’s AD still has the same rosy thoughts about how everyone in the SEC operates with the mindset of what’s in the best interest of the league.

I can’t speak for him, but if I still give a shit about college football in five years, I’ll be amazed.

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Les Miles and the geography of tradition

As with so many things Les Miles says, it’s hard to tell whether he’s being a smartass or just smart when he discusses his displeasure with LSU having Florida as its permanent cross-division partner/rival.

“This is all based on some vague tradition that is not considering that you’re adding teams to the conference,” he said. “Tell me about the tradition of the conference when you add teams to it.

“I mean, Florida isn’t even a nearby state. This tradition of rivalry is the fact that we enjoy playing them.”

Wait a minute… if you enjoy playing them, then why do you want to do away with… oh, never mind.

If Miles is complaining specifically about his game, well, okay.  Although his “adding teams to the conference” rationale doesn’t make much sense in that there were unbalanced rivalries/pairings before expansion when he didn’t object and the two new schools aren’t exactly patsies.  But there’s so much “it’s not fair!” whining going on these days you can hardly blame the man for his share.  However, if he’s dissing “the tradition of the conference” as a whole, The Hat can go screw himself.

It’s not like we fans were clamoring for conference expansion.  That’s come about solely as a result of the chase for the almighty dollar.  And that’s a chase that benefits Les Miles a helluva lot more than it does me.  So if you’ve got a problem with SEC tradition, Les, kindly keep it to yourself.

Charles Mack, Paul Johnson knows where you live.

I don’t know about you, but getting 52 letters in one day from Paul Johnson and Al Groh would sort of creep me out.

Although if this kid commits and then decides he wants to look around before signing, maybe Johnson could send him 52 threatening letters on the same day.

Recruiting numbers: the SEC is having a very, very good run.

The other conferences may be working to keep the SEC down in the new postseason, but there isn’t much they’re doing about the righteous asskicking they’re receiving from the SEC on the recruiting trail right now.

Check these nuggets out:

• Ten of the country’s 16 highest-ranked classes, per 247Sports, come from SEC schools.  That includes Vanderbilt, which is currently ahead of Florida State.
• Only four schools in the SEC don’t have at least ten verbal commitments at present.  Next closest to the SEC?  The Big Ten, at three.
• SEC schools hold more than half (150) of all verbal commitments (289).

That is dominance.

Bracket creeps

Lest we forget, football isn’t the only sport with a scheduling agenda on the table at Destin.  The SEC is grappling with that for men’s basketball, as well.  John Calipari thinks the conference ought to pit its best teams against each other and let the conference’s lesser lights do the same against each other.  That would presumably maximize the schools’ RPIs.

Because, truth be told, that’s all college basketball is about these days.

“Is that what it’s about, who wins the league or the league tournament?” Calipari said. “Or is it about your seed in the NCAA Tournament? How many teams do we want in the NCAA Tournament? Do you want three or four, or do you want six or seven? If you want six or seven, this scheduling matters.”

I’m not saying he’s wrong about that.  I am saying that coaches are like anyone else; they’re going to advocate in their own interests.  And the reality is that making the tourney is everything in men’s basketball.  You can bitch as much as you want to about what the one-and-done rule has done to the sport, but it’s March Madness that’s devalued basketball’s regular season into nothing more than a playoff delivery system.  And with a big enough playoff, you’ll see football go down the same road.

Settling it on the conference room table

When you’ve got a process that’s born out of frustration with the SEC’s run in the BCS title game and fueled by last season’s all-SEC matchup, why would you expect anything different from this?

What used to be fuel for the news cycle in this interminable journey toward a major college playoff has devolved into a study in posturing. A war of words to protect turf, tradition and Tuscaloosa.

Don’t think so? Here we are, three weeks from when the playoff format could be revealed and the consensus builders seem to be deconstructing. To call it anything else would be refusing to sense the vibe that permeated the beginning of the SEC spring meetings that began on Tuesday.

“It’s just like politics and self-interest,” Nick Saban said. “Somebody wants to create a circumstance that’s going to help their situation or conference. That’s not in the best interest of college football.”

The best interest of college football?  When was this ever about that?

Look, there’s going to be a change.  There’s way too much money in a stand-alone national title game for even the most ardent conference defenders to avoid passing up.  But there is more than one way to skin that cat.  Every day that passes with more roadblocks to reaching a consensus on a four-team playoff, the more a plus-one fallback looks likely.

If you don’t think that’s going to happen, tell me which conference commissioner(s) is the candidate to back down and compromise.

Wednesday morning buffet

I think I smell fresh seafood from Destin.

• To no one’s surprise, all the SEC coaches came out yesterday in favor of a four-team national playoff to consist of the four highest-ranked teams.
• Joe at Coaches Hot Seat Blog doesn’t think much of the SEC’s likely decision to stick with eight-game conference schedules.
• Evidently the ADs are going to discuss Spurrier’s division only proposal.
• Kevin Scarbinsky taunts LSU a second time.
• Mike Slive won’t take Tony Barnhart’s bait on whether there’s a possible compromise on the makeup of a four-team playoff.
• Gene Chizik wants the Georgia-Auburn game to stay on the schedule:  “It’s the longest standing rivalry in the south and there’s too much value in it.”
• Somebody actually ran an analysis of how much FSU’s travel budget would increase with a move to the Big 12.
• Missouri’s AD compares the collective mind sets of the Big 12 and the SEC.  Reading between the lines, the difference is Texas.
• First time I’ve heard this one:  Kevin Sumlin thinks the SEC’s bigger defenders make the spread offense harder to run.  Interesting.

What’s the next level past comfortable?

Paul Myerberg’s got a good piece up about the latest coach to embrace the “I can be as big a dick as Randy Edsall” approach to player transfers, Memphis’ Justin Fuentes.  (Memphis?  Really?)  In it, Myerberg divides the coaching world into three parts:

… Head coaches can take one of three stances with a potential transfer, even one at a position as key as quarterback: hard, medium and soft. The hard-line stance is the one Fuente is taking with Reed, the one stolen right out of Randy Edsall’s playbook with former Maryland quarterback Danny O’Brien: you’re hurting the program by leaving, so in a way, this is payback.

There’s the medium approach: I’m not going to allow you to hurt us in the future. Therefore, your transfer cannot lead to a future opponent over the remainder of your eligibility clock. For Reed, who can sit out this season and retain three additional seasons of eligibility, this would mean that Memphis’ no-transfer list would include the entire Big East and all non-conference foes through the 2015 season.

Then there’s the soft, easy, confident approach: you can’t play in our conference, but all else is fair game. Goodbye, and good luck. It takes a comfortable, certain and assured head coach to make this move — it takes the anti-Fuente, a rookie head coach making up rules as he goes along.

I’m curious – where does that put Mark Richt, who not only doesn’t put a restriction on players transferring to other SEC schools, but on occasion has contacted other SEC coaches to help a player move?

Collector’s item

A bargain at $4.99.  I just hope they’re not too hard to scrape off your bumper next year, if necessary.

Musical palate cleanser: And there never was a horse…

I wasn’t interested in country or bluegrass music until I was blown away hearing Will The Circle Be Unbroken for the first time.  My favorite cut from that album was Doc Watson’s “Tennessee Stud”.

I mention that because I was sorry to learn of Doc’s passing.  The world has lost an incredible flat-picking guitarist.