Mr. College Football

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive made his point Friday when he fined Urban Meyer $30,000 for comments the Florida head coach made about officiating on Wednesday. Was it the right decision or should Slive have suspended Meyer?

Last week Slive brought the hammer down on the coaches after a rash of public criticisms of officiating. He put everybody on notice that there would be no more reprimands. Future public criticisms of officials would be met with fines, suspensions or both. He had the full backing of the league’s coaches and athletics directors.

Let me give you some insight into how the decision was made.

Meyer did violate the letter of the law. On Wednesday’s coaches conference call he was specifically asked about a piece of video he sent to the conference office showing what he believed was a late hit on quarterback Tim Tebow by Georgia’s Nick Williams.

Meyer couched his words but this is what he said:  “That should have been a penalty, in my opinion. Obviously, it …

Continue reading SEC made right call on Meyer »

Made a couple of mistakes last week when I thought Ole Miss had figured things out and would beat Auburn and that Kentucky would win at home against Mississippi State. That gave us a record of 8-2 on the week and 67-23 on the season.

So let’s get on with the Fearless Friday Forecast for the first Saturday in November:

1. Wake Forest at Georgia Tech: It’s tough for any team to get ready to play Georgia Tech in just four days. Deacons’ quarterback Riley Skinner (concussion) was cleared to play on Friday which gives them a chance to control the football and keep the Tech offense off the field.  Still, Georgia Tech is a hot team that is at the top of its game. Jackets take one step closer to the ACC championship game in Tampa. Georgia Tech 31, Wake Forest 17.

2. Tennessee Tech at Georgia: It has not been a fun week to be a Bulldog. Coach Mark Richt has decided to stick with quarterback Joe Cox for a stretch drive that also includes Auburn, Kentucky and Georgia Tech. …

Continue reading Georgia Tech moves one step closer to ACC title game »

Normally on Thursdays we have Five Burning Questions. Today, we only have two:

1. Brandon Spikes will sit out the whole game against Vanderbilt. Will Urban Meyer be joining him?  Florida’s Spikes was suspended for trying to poke Georgia’s Washaun Ealey in the eye last Saturday in Jacksonville. Originally, coach Urban Meyer suspended Spikes for one half of the Vanderbilt game. After a national media backlash against the punishment as being inadequate, it was announced after practice on Wednesday that Spikes would sit the entire game. Spikes said he asked that his punishment be extended because he didn’t want to be a “distraction” to the team.

We’ll deal more with that decision in the next note. But here is what I want to know. Did Urban Meyer break the SEC commissioner’s rule on not publicly criticizing officials? If so, could he be sitting out the Vanderbilt game with Spikes?

On Wednesday’s SEC conference call the Florida head coach said he sent video …

Continue reading Spikes will sit whole game. Will Meyer be joining him? »

The AJC did a good job this morning of breaking down issues that have contributed to Georgia’s 4-4 season. I thought Jeff Schultz made the central point when he wrote that Mark Richt didn’t suddenly become a bad coach after winning two SEC championships (2002, 2005) and playing for another (2003). When football teams have a bad season like this, the head coach has to be willing to look at everything and everybody in the offseason. In the final analysis, it really comes down to five questions that Richt musk ask and answer:

1. Despite what the recruiting services say, is Georgia recruiting the caliber of athlete that allows the Bulldogs to compete for the SEC championship? A big part of coaching that fans rarely talk about is the ability of a staff to evaluate talent and make decisions on players. If you are signing the players you want but still getting bad results, then maybe you have a problem in evaluating talent. Example: A couple of years ago the Georgia staff …

Continue reading Five questions facing Georgia’s Mark Richt »

I can’t tell you how many people have asked me if there is ANY way that No. 10 Georgia Tech can get to the BCS championship game. It’s a long shot because there are seven undefeated teams ahead of Yellow Jackets. But for fun, let’s give it a try.

Remember that if you’re Georgia Tech, the goal is to get to No. 2. Let’s try this:

1. Florida (8-0):  Runs the table and beats LSU (not Alabama) in the SEC championship game to finish No. 1. Now everybody is playing for No. 2.

2. Texas (8-0): Loses its regular-season finale at Texas A&M on Nov. 26. Texas coach Mack Brown says he still has the best one-loss team in the country. Then, in stunning upset, the Longhorns lose to Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game.

3. Alabama (8-0): Loses on Saturday to LSU. After failing to reach the SEC championship game, the Crimson Tide fan base and players are so deflated that they forget to show up at Auburn on Nov. 27 and lose for the second time.

4. Iowa (9-0): …

Continue reading How Georgia Tech can play for the BCS title »

So what did we learn over the weekend?

1. If Florida doesn’t suspend Brandon Spikes, then the SEC office should. Unless the video below has been doctored, this is simply unacceptable from a college football player. Spikes is a great player. He is also an emotional player. And he clearly let his emotions get the best of him when he stuck his hand inside Waushan Ealey’s facemask. My hope is that Florida coach Urban Meyer looks at the video, is horrified, and suspends Spikes for at least one game. Spikes needs a reality check. Look, I know enough former players who have told me that a lot of bad things happen in pileups. But this is right out in the open and everything was caught on camera. This is a player intentionally trying to hurt another player. It’s simple: If coaches are going to be held accountable for their actions and officials are going to be held accountable for their mistakes, then players must be held accountable for what they do. There is no place in …

Continue reading If Florida doesn’t suspend Spikes, SEC office should »

I went 7-3 last week because I picked Arkansas to beat Ole Miss, Miami to beat Clemson, and Boston College to upset Notre Dame. Still, your humble scribe is 59-21 for the season. So let’s close out the month of October with the Fearless Friday Forecast.

1. Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville): Florida is 7-0, ranked No. 1, but has a ton of questions about its offense. Tim Tebow is getting frustrated and last week against Mississippi State tried to make plays that simply weren’t there. But the Gators are due for a breakout game on offense and the defense will get LB Brandon Spikes back. Georgia has had a week off but it won’t be enough. Florida 27, Georgia 6.

2. Georgia Tech at Vanderbilt: Georgia Tech has won five straight and now has a chance to at least get into the BCS discussion if the Jackets can run the table and win the ACC championship game. When you’re 11th in the BCS, style points matter. Vanderbilt has a pretty good defense but it is hard to get ready …

Continue reading Gators roll over Dawgs to stay at No. 1 »

Five burning questions as we head into the weekend:

1. Will Tim Tebow break Herschel Walker’s touchdown record against Georgia?  Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, scored 49 rushing touchdowns in his three seasons at Georgia. Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, has 48 rushing touchdowns in about 3 ½ seasons at Florida. You have to figure that Tebow will break Walker’s record in Saturday’s game in Jacksonville. That’s a tremendous accomplishment for a quarterback, but it is worth noting that Walker scored five touchdowns in three Sugar Bowl appearances (1980-82). Those touchdowns are not included in Walker’s records because only recently did the NCAA start counting post-season statistics in career totals.

2. What will Lane Kiffin do if he gets a bad call against South Carolina? The Tennessee coach was reprimanded for the second time this year by the SEC after complaining about the officiating in the Alabama-Tennessee game. He complained that …

Continue reading Will Tebow break Herschel’s TD record in JAX? »

Florida is still No. 1 but the reality is that the Gators are bringing a very vulnerable football team to Jacksonville on Saturday to play Georgia.

The offense, which was unstoppable a year ago, is simply not playing well. There is no question that the Gators miss offensive coordinator Dan Mullen, now the head coach at Mississippi State. But more than that Florida misses the ability to stretch the field vertically as they did a year ago with Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy. Nobody is scared that these guys are going to go deep anymore.

 Tim Tebow is starting to press a little and is trying to do too much. He was sacked six times against Arkansas, a game in which Florida turned it over four times. Tebow threw two pick-sixes against Mississippi State, which meant the Gators had to work way too hard to win 29-19 in Starkville (You may insert your officiating reference here).

 The defense is beat up and tired because it’s been on the field too much. Linebacker Brandon Spikes …

Continue reading Florida is vulnerable. But can Georgia do anything about it? »

On most weeks, it is fun to be Rogers Redding. The professorial Redding received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Georgia Tech and then earned his Ph.d. in Physical Chemistry from Vanderbilt. At several institutions, Redding was the chemistry professor that everyone wanted because he could take the complex and make it understandable.

Redding, it turns out, didn’t know what complex really was until he became the SEC supervisor of football officials in 2006. And he never really knew there could be a three-week stretch like this, where he has been called everything but, as our friend Neal Boortz would say, a child of God.

“It’s been interesting, to say the very least,” said Redding.

The SEC, much to its chagrin, has been put front and center over an increasingly loud discussion over football officiating. In three of the last four Saturdays a big call in a nationally-televised SEC game has sparked controversy that resulted in suspension of …

Continue reading Time for conferences to get out of the officiating business »