Thursday morning buffet

Indulge yourselves.

• As the Auburn-Louisville game in Atlanta approaches, prepare to hear more of this.
• Regrets, Gene Chizik has a few.
• Mark Schlabach predicts this is Steve Spurrier’s last season.
• Delusional optimism, And The Valley Shook style.
• Kids, these days.
• Spurrier, on Finebaum:  “Every now and then when I listen in to your show, I know the SEC fans are a little upset at Ohio State’s schedule and rightfully so to tell you the truth.” 
• We’ve known Bobby Petrino’s an ambitious dick.  We just didn’t know how far back that went. “He opted to join the Tigers without informing his boss, Tom Coughlin, who was alerted of his offensive coordinator’s departure through an Auburn news release.”  And so, a legend was born.
• Les Miles overdosed on coffee this week?  Sure, I can see that.

Chiz Whiz

I can’t figure out what I find more amusing about Gene Chizik becoming Larry Fedora’s new defensive coordinator – that he’s going to coach defense at school that ran more offensive plays than Malzahn called at Auburn (remember, that’s why Malzahn left Auburn in the first place), or that Andrea Adelson questions the hire because Chizik once had Trooper Taylor working for him.

The Chiz is back.

He’s a solid defensive coordinator, so it’s not a dumb hire by any means.

I just wonder how much less he’ll be making than Boom.

“I said, no, no, no. We don’t want to play Georgia Tech.”

What is it with Auburn coaches running away from ACC competition?  The Chiz wouldn’t step up against the genius? “You talk to any coach out there they do not want to play the Georgia Techs of the world.”

If nothing else, that ought to disqualify him from another head coaching job ever.

Friday morning buffet

Just because it’s June doesn’t mean I can’t fill a few chafing dishes for you.

• I’ll go into detail later this summer about it, but perhaps this is the best thing Georgia’s secondary has going for it this season.
• Bitcoin is going to sponsor a bowl game.  Will it hand out a virtual trophy?
• The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Aereo case may impact how we watch the NFL, but keep in mind what’s written in this piece could also apply to CBS and its contract with the SEC.
• Here’s the Post and Courier’s preview of the Clemson-Georgia game.  And here’s the preview of the South Carolina-Georgia game.
• One reason the schools fear Jeffrey Kessler’s lawsuit:  one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys used to be an associate director of enforcement for the NCAA.
• Believe it or not, ESPN preseason rankings have Georgia’s secondary as seventh best in the conference.
• Gene Chizik predicts a 10-2 season for Auburn, with losses to South Carolina and Alabama.
• Vanderbilt checks in at #74 in Paul Myerberg’s preseason roundup.
• College coaches try to figure out the best way to utilize the new rules on summer supervision.  (Brian Kelly knows what to do, but if he told you, then he’d have to kill you.)
• “We’re guessing that many people would agree that college president or medical school dean is slightly more beneficial to humanity than being a football coach.”  Depends whom you ask, I suspect.
• Bill Connelly looks at this year’s Clemson Tigers team and comes away impressed, particularly with that defensive line.

Friday lunch buffet

No turkey in this buffet.

• Harvey Updyke’s rehabilitation hasn’t exactly taken hold.
• With all the bad luck with injuries we’ve seen in Athens, I’m kind of surprised this happened with the other Bulldogs.
• Speaking of injuries, it’s hard to believe that Todd Gurley’s still got a decent shot at another 1,000-yard rushing season.
• Gene Chizik reflects.  Yawn.
• If you haven’t heard, next year Georgia plays Arkansas in Little Rock.
• One reason we always seem to hear about patience and Georgia quarterbacks is because Bobo and Richt are good at developing their starters at the position.
• Tennessee refuses to release information about whether Maurice Couch or Tyler Bray committed any NCAA violations, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to protect student privacy.  Wait, what?

Sunday morning buffet

Eh, why not.

• Gregg Doyel must be in serious need of hits:  “I’m not saying Manziel has a drinking problem.”
• Anthony Dasher has a good piece on Georgia associate strength and conditioning coach Sherman Armstrong.
• Relax, gamers.  EA Sports has a new deal with CLC.
• If this is true, hopefully it’ll broadcast at night, because sometimes I have insomnia.
• Dawg fans, here’s the link to the 2013 Official Media Guide.
• Scarbinsky asks a good question, rhetorically, of course, since we all know the answer.
• There will be plenty more Return of Mett stories between now and  September 28th.

A Chiz can dream, can’t he?

How ’bout this?  “In a 27-year coaching career, Chizik had never left a job because of somebody else’s decision.”

That’s what happens when you’re the guy with the program that turned in the fourth-worst offensive and third-worst defensive showings in the SEC in the last six years.  Maybe we should be impressed that Auburn managed to win three games last year, given that.

It’s obvious Chizik wants to coach again.  That’s why he spent the time strenuously objecting to Selena Roberts’ report the other day.  (By the way, “we did it right” includes spending $77,000 to have private security enforce Auburn football player curfews during last season?  Ho-kay, fine.)

“It’s been a time of reflection. I’m not one to dwell on the past and look at all the ‘what-ifs’ and things of that nature, but naturally, you reflect,” Chizik said. “But I’ve also stayed busy. I’m in a place right now where I’m continuing to map out a plan.”

Careful with that kind of talk, Geno.  Remember what happened with the last SEC head coach who had a plan.

Okay, so now you tell us.

A couple of hindsight is always 20/20 stories for your amusement:

First, we learn that the high school coaches nearest to SOD Country never had much use for the guy, because he didn’t have much use for them.  There’s a lot of hurt feefees on display, as well as sour grapes.

“I didn’t like that staff, to be honest,” Price said. “I grew up in this state and I would go to the games about every week and wanted to support them. I’m a Tennessee fan, but we never heard anything from them. Not even a visit just to introduce who was recruiting our area or a call or anything. It was like they didn’t care whether they had any relationship with us at all, so how would we ever feel good about sending a kid there once we had one they wanted?

“I’ve been coaching a long time and dealt with a lot of coaches at every level, and those guys were the worst as far as feeling like they wanted to work with you or have any relationship at all with the high school coaches.”

Sumbitches!  And here’s the best part:  “The lack-of-communication complaint was echoed by all 37 coaches who responded to the poll, and each said the staffs under former coaches Phillip Fulmer and Lane Kiffin seemed to care more about building a working relationship.”  Hey, great!  And how did that work out for Tennessee?

But that’s mild stuff compared with Kevin Scarbinsky’s don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass farewell to Gene Chizik.  It’s a classic of the genre.  Even if just half of what’s in there is true, it’s hard to see how Jay Jacobs still has a job this morning.

My favorite part:

Newton, Fairley and the seniors received plenty of credit for the national title. So did offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, whose attack set school and SEC records. People close to Chizik believe he felt slighted in the afterglow even though he deserved and earned praise for his steady hand as allegations of recruiting violations threatened Newton’s eligibility.

Chizik seemed to change after the national title. It’s not uncommon for coaches to write books after that kind of season, but his – “All In: What It Takes to Be the Best” – was far more about him than about the team.

I guess they should have read his book more carefully.  They can probably get a cheap copy of it now, though.

Chizik, losing his religion

I know taking advice from former Auburn offensive coordinators – amazingly enough, two of Tuberville’s former staffers are up for the Broyles Award this year – is probably the last thing Gene Chizik wants to hear right now, but something Tony Franklin said bears repeating as we enter into what very well may turn out to be Chizik’s farewell on the Plains today:

“New England is the best offense in the NFL for one reason,” Franklin said. “They play like colleges do. They play no-huddle, fast-tempo, they change tempos and they do what they have to do to win. I think Belichick would probably disagree with his buddy.”

“It’s the great equalizer,” Franklin said. “People say Baylor can’t play defense. You know what? Before Art Briles got there, they couldn’t play offense, either, and they couldn’t win games. Now all of a sudden, Baylor can beat people because they can outscore people.

“Obviously if you can line up and you’ve got better players than everybody else and play great defense and eat clock and win as many games as you can, that’s a great way of playing football, too. The problem is, 95 percent of us don’t have that type of talent to do that.

“So when they fall into that trap of saying, ‘Here’s how Alabama has won championships. Here’s what we should do,’ to me, that’s the trap that Coach Saban would want everybody to fall into because, the reality of it is, he’s going to have better players most of the time.”

Chizik walked right into that trap with eyes open when he ditched Malzahn and elected to go with a more traditional offensive scheme.  I read the other day that Chizik without Malzahn has a 2-22 record as a head coach against D-1 teams.  Choosing a course of action with the thought that Auburn would be able to go toe-to-toe with Saban’s Process, even with guys like Luper and Taylor luring recruits to Auburn, was a fool’s errand from the start and Chizik is about to be presented with the check.

It will be interesting to see where Auburn goes from here.  Does it proceed to act as if it’s part of the five percent that can line it up with Saban, or does it go the let’s try to outscore ’em route – a path that served Texas A&M pretty well this year (and made Ole Miss a pain in the ass to play)?