Thursday morning buffet

Fire up the chafing dishes!

• I can’t help but wonder after catching Lou Holtz’ comments about immigrants if he ever recruited soccer-style kickers who were born outside of America.
• As far as Missouri’s AD leaving for Baylor goes, it’s not like he had an easy ride where he was.
• Supposedly, Georgia’s kicking competition “isn’t deemed as concerning based on what’s transpired since the spring.”
• The Ivy League will experiment with kickoffs from the 40-yard line this season.
• Bruce Feldman lists his top ten offensive lines.  Georgia’s isn’t one of them.
• My favorite bit from the Big 12 swimsuit competition so far (yeah, it’s early): “No wonder Houston board of regents chairman conducted a 1 a.m. interview Wednesday with the Houston Chronicle while on vacation in Monte Carlo.”
• Good piece from Ian Boyd on what coaches look for in picking linebackers.

Lou Holtz explains why student-athletes can’t have nice things.

“An athlete should be paid if he works at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s — but not to go to college. The purpose is to go to college, not to be a football player…”

That would explain his recruiting classes at South Carolina.  And since when does a college football player have time to work a second job, anyway?

Live blogging the Meyer announcement

Just kidding… but a few thoughts on listening to ESPN’s Three Wise Men (or Stooges, take your pick) analyze the Meyer resignation:

• Lou Holtz is a consummate asshole.  Leave it to him to spin a decision that sounds like it was driven by health concerns into something caused by negative media and internet commentary – because that’s what Holtz claims happened to Holtz.
• I wondered about what happened in the wake of the SECCG with Meyer’s admission to a hospital and was skeptical about the dehydration story.  Now we’re told he has a heart defect and has been in the hospital on several occasions.  The man is making the right choice for himself, as tough as it may have been to make.  Health and family come first and I hope for nothing but the best for Meyer and his family.
• This obviously wasn’t an overnight decision – which makes me wonder what, if anything, Charlie Strong was told.
• A job opening in Gainesville and with the immediate speculation about a successor, zero mention is made of Steve Spurrier.  How interesting.

Wednesday morning buffet

Some of these stories are crisper than the bacon.

• ‘Bama’s getting its A-Day game broadcast on the WWL.  By my count, that’s three SEC schools showing their spring games on ESPN so far, and I think Mississippi State’s got Raycom showing its spring game.  I wonder how many Mountain West spring games we’ll be able to watch on the tube.
• Lou Holtz and Sean Hannity. The mind reels.
• On the other hand, there’s Michael Lewis, who, before writing great sports books, was a superb financial writer.  Oops, make that is a superb financial writer – check out this piece about Iceland’s financial collapse.  He had me at “In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them…”
• Florida is looking at moving Matt Patchan from defensive line to tight end.  That’s a big tight end, folks.
• HeismanPundit gives us some more background on the ancient Samoan ritual of nipple baring that’s been brought into Knoxville.  I will say that if Junior decides to import the Song Girls into the UT program, I shan’t complain.
• Iowa (underaged) defensive back Shaun Prater comes up with the best DUI excuse evah.  He still got suspended from the team.  (h/t OrlandoSentinel.com)
• Maybe Oklahoma was better than Texas last season.
• In reading this piece about five South Carolina players to watch this spring (is that all?), I came across this line about backup Reid McCollum that may explain why Spurrier is having so much trouble at the QB position:  “But like Garcia, coaches want to see McCollum make more of a commitment off the field.” I remember the day when the OBC recruited quarterbacks who worked hard.  He can’t find kids like that anymore?
• And while we’re in Columbia, does anybody think this might be a metaphor for the season?

Strange bedfellowth

Lou Holtz and Jesse Helms? Creepy, man, creepy.  And there were consequences:

… A few years later, after Holtz had left for Arkansas, Helms looked to trade in on the favor, and asked Holtz to appear in a television campaign advertisement for his re-election to the U.S. Senate.

Here’s how Holtz explains it in his autobiography, “Wins, Losses and Lessons”:

“When he ran for the U.S. Senate … Jesse asked me to do an ad for him. I did, but when I got home, I felt uncomfortable. The politics of football is tough enough; injecting myself into a Senate race didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. So I called Jesse and told him how uncomfortable I felt. He understood, and the ad never aired.”

According to authors Orville Henry and Jim Bailey, who wrote the book “The Razorbacks: A Story of Arkansas Football,” Holtz’ support of Helms didn’t sit well at a Deep South school like Arkansas, still struggling to move past southern college football’s dark legacy of racism.

“Lou’s old friend Jesse,” they explain, “was conducting a one-man filibuster against the establishment of Martin Luther King Day while the Arkansas staff was calling black mothers trying to recruit their sons.”

Soon afterward, Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles called Holtz into his office and fired him. Holtz claims he wasn’t given a clear reason, but speculates in his autobiography that his filming of a Helms campaign ad factored strongly into the decision.

You think?

Yeth, babee!

This is the most sublime “Separated at Birth” I’ve seen.

Austin Powers and…

Lou Holtz in an earlier life. Frickin’ uncanny.

(mucho h/t Digital Headbutt)

He’th thtill got it.

From Wendell Barnhouse’s pop quiz in today’s Star-Telegram:

… ESPN analyst and former coach Lou Holtz has been delivering pep talks to teams during halftime segments of Thursday night telecasts. Holtz has delivered five pep talks this season, and four of the teams he “pepped” have lost.

This sounds more potent than the SI cover jinx.