Return to Seat 37F

Media members, you’ve been warned:   if Corch catches you hanging around his student-athletes, the consequences won’t be pretty.

But Urban Meyer says he has had to deal with people getting in the ears of players about the possibility of transferring. Miller would be eligible to transfer and play immediately at another school next season. The fifth-year transfer has risen in the past decade, and Meyer says he’s even heard about some media possibly talking to kids.

“I’m going to research that a little bit,” Meyer said on Bruce Feldman’s podcast. “There’s people in the media that work in high-power positions that, I guess, are having conversations with our players about transferring. I spent a year at ESPN, and I can’t imagine that’s acceptable. If that is going on, and I haven’t had time to research — obviously, we’ve been playing — if anybody in the media is having any conversations with one of your players about transferring, that person doesn’t belong to work in the media anymore. They certainly won’t have access to your program. Those are things you have to be very leery of.”

What a dick.

Although there’s a part of me that hopes it’s somebody at ESPN that’s pissed Meyer off.  The resulting spat would be fun to watch, that’s for sure.

“It takes over 200 people, really, to make a day like today happen.”

I doubt Greg McGarity approves of this message.

Turnipseed spent his previous 11 years in Tuscaloosa, serving as Nick Saban’s director of external affairs. His old teammate and mentor from the early 90s plucked him away in May 2013.

“Thad Turnipseed has done a fantastic job helping us build what my vision for our program was as far as taking our recruiting to another level,” Swinney said. “We were a little behind, I thought, as far as our efficiency.”

This is the best way Swinney describes Turnipseed’s role: he wakes up every day and thinks about recruiting. That’s something a multitasking coach can’t say.

“Thad Turnipseed’s been an awesome addition,” said Jeff Scott, who was Clemson’s recruiting coordinator from 2009-14 before his promotion to co-offensive coordinator. “We’re light years ahead of where we were before he got here.”

Growing staff

There was one student volunteering her time to recruiting when Turnipseed arrived at Clemson.

A year and a half later, as many as 40 students at one time can be assisting Turnipseed or Scott, or new recruiting coordinator Brandon Streeter, or Scott’s father Brad, who handles player development, or director of high school relations Mike Dooley, or director of new media Jonathan Gantt. Turnipseed also has two full-time assistants and two graduate assistants.

Clemson University owns and operates one prop plane commonly used on recruiting trips. The athletic department employs three full-time pilots: James Allison, Dan Arblaster and Jason Williams.

Wretched excess?  In today’s world of football recruiting, it’s not even keeping up with the Joneses.

But it’s all relative. Staffs like Clemson’s still lag behind SEC powers like Alabama and Auburn.

“We’re definitely a lot smaller still. But we’re exactly what we need,” Turnipseed said.

“In this league, in November it’s won in the trenches.”

I have a hard time getting a mental picture of Tracy Rocker being happy, so let’s just say that I think he’s appreciative of the quality of the incoming defensive lineman class.

I’ll be happy for him, thank you very much.

Bert makes bank.

In the SEC, $4 million a year is the new black.

Reaching that milestone after a 7-6 season, you wonder how long it’ll take before we’re saying that about $5 million a year.

Pretty soon, Nick Saban’s gonna look underpaid.

Musical palate cleanser, she’s got a dog that won’t bite edition

I saw Delbert McClinton last night.  It’s the best show I’ve ever seen a 74-year old man put on.  It’s always a pleasure to watch a guy who loves to perform and connect with his audience.  He and his band definitely didn’t mail in a single note.

I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of listening to his stuff before.  He works around the area where honky-tonk and R & B converge and he’s got a voice that’s made in America.  He’s been at it for decades, so needless to say he’s got as rich a song catalog as anyone out there.

Here’s a taste.  It’s the song he closed with last night and it’s one of my favorites, the slightly Stones-y “Every Time I Roll The Dice”.  Enjoy.

“‘Oh, don’t commit to coach, commit to a college.’ That’s bull crap.”

A lot of you are likely to disagree with what Larry Harold has to say about Roquan Smith’s hesitancy to commit to a school this minute.

“I’m reading a lot of these websites, and you’ve got people on there saying things like ‘A kid shouldn’t commit to a coach; he should commit to a school,’” Macon County coach Larry Harold said.

“I just want to tell those people this, because maybe they don’t know: If you’ve never played sports or anything like that, you are more than just a coach to these kids. You’re their dad, their mom, and their extended family. You’re everything to these kids. So when they’re going to get recruited by the next coach, to find the person who is going to be charge of the next four years of their life, they are looking for the same things.”

“When you get recruited by Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Oregon and all these top schools – when you go visit them, they all have nice football facilities. They have good academic centers and beautiful campuses. Everything is basically the same everywhere. So what separates them? You know what the coaches sell those kids on? ‘That it’s about the people and the relationships.’ That’s all they sell the kids on. They all say the same things. If you had a recruiter sitting here, he’d say, ‘Our school is just like everybody else, but it’s all about the people and relationships with us.’

Ah, but what the hell does he know?  He’s just a coach.