"Steveo's Salvos" - January 2010 Edition

"Salvos" is presented as the editorial content of CollegeFootballFan.com focusing on current issues surrounding college football and news about some of the teams on the CFF schedule this year.  Originally from a newsletter, this web site, CollegeFootballFan.com, has evolved. 

All in the Family - Derek Dooley, son of former Georgia Bulldog Head Coach Vince Dooley, steps in from Louisiana Tech to take over at Tennessee for the not-so-dearly departed Lane Kiffin who bolted for USC after one year full of promises to the faithful on good ol' Rocky Top.  Derek grew up in Athens, played for George Welsh at UVA whom we saw play for in the 1989 Kick-off Classic, and started a coaching career at Georgia for his father after a career change from the legal profession.  He coached for five years at LSU under Lou Saban before a one-year hiatus with him to the NFL.  He went back to college ball becoming Head Coach at Louisiana Tech where these Bulldogs achieved a record of 17-20 during his three years.  We saw his team lose to 3-9 Army in 2008, 14-7.  Granted UT had short notice to recover from Kiffin's grand escape, but aside from the pedigree, is this Dooley truly Head Coach material at such a high level program?  He may have the benefit of holding on to some of Kiffin's recruits, where some questionable tactics might hurt the Vols later on, but does he have the strength and endurance to try to right this still struggling program to the heights it once enjoyed? We think Dooley has his work cut out for him.  If he falters, does he have the option Lane Kiffin took advantage of?  We wonder if we'll see his father Vince along the sideline wearing orange with him some day. Lane had Monte as his defensive coordinator.  We wonder if UT took this into consideration when making the hire. Will Dad be ready to step in?  What would the reaction be in Athens?

Recruiting ratings - What do they really mean?  We see all the usual suspects in the Top 25 recruiting ratings from Florida to Texas to USC to Ohio State.  Who we don't see is Boise State, Utah, TCU, or Cincinnati.  It's great to have the talent to begin with, but there are those programs who do a lot more with what they get when they got them.  Coaching has a lot to do with talent beyond recruiting it.  Kudos to those who can take the "leftovers" and do more with it then all the ones focused on the high school hype.

Crimp in our schedule - The Lenape Valley HS schedule came out recently and put the crimp on one and maybe two big plans we had for next season's schedule.  The Big Tailgate party for the Lehigh-Fordham game is doomed as we were hoping to see a local former HS player perform in that one.  We'll have to see what else we can do to see a Lehigh game and bringing a good crowd along with us.  Unless Notre Dame-Navy is played under the lights in the Meadowlands, and we doubt it, that looks like it's a goner, too.  Most other games we're looking at for the season look doable.  Of course, any playoff games in November could change things as well.  We'll plan to stay close and we'll see what's under the lights as options that time of year.

A sign of things to come? - Lane Kiffin offered Norm Chow his old position back at USC.   Chow was instrumental in the USC success under Pete Carroll before moving on eventually to cross-town rival UCLA.  Chow turned down Kiffin. It may be a sign that he's in a better place tight now. 

Fryin' pan to fire? - For one year. Lane Kiffin stirs up the Tennessee Vols where the program is under NCAA investigation for recruiting abnormalities using pretty members of booster clubs to "make contact" with high school recruits, and now he fills Peter Carroll's shoes at USC where he leaves abnormalities behind going the other way.  The NCAA is looking hard at boosters and agents enticing USC players with gifts to sign on the dotted lines.  Where there's smoke, there's fire they say.  Formerly the USC offensive coordinator before experimenting with Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders, Kiffin was practically Carroll's right arm.  How well did he learn under Carroll?  What did he learn under Carroll?  He pissed off a bunch of SEC coaches before the 20009 season even started, and now he's pissing off a lot of orange-clad Tennessee fans who gave him the benefit of the doubt.  Not only is he leaving, he's leaving Tennessee in a lurch because he's probably taking his whole coaching staff with him, obviously his defensive coordinator and Dad, Monte.  We want to see how many players from Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Alabama dot next year's Trojan roster.  Who does UT set their sights on for Kiffin's sudden departure?  This is going to be real interesting.  Who can Kiffin bash among the PAC-10 coaching staffs?  Jim Harbaugh?  Steve Sarkisian, the former USC defensive coordinator who worked with him who is now turning Washington around?  What program will be on probation firsts - UT or USC? Rick Neuheisel gets to play him again after beating his Vols last season, but now plays him in a more meaningful game (hope to get there in 2011). Two - if you consider recruiting as a game.  Brian Kelly gets to match wits with him in the USC-ND rivalry.  The college football pot's already starting to boil for 2010.

BCS Bust -  Many including us believe that the BCS is hurting the game of college football for many reasons and we've harped on it in Salvos in the past.  This is in reference though to this year's game won by Alabama over Texas, 31-21, only because the injury to Colt McCoy turned it into an anti-climactic game between the mythical number one and mythical number two.  Granted injuries are part of the game, but when Texas had to fall back on the services of Garret Gilbert, we got the best of what could be expected from a freshman QB who passed for 124 yards over 13 games.  The shovel pass interception for an interception return was the killer right before the half for Bama's 24-7 lead.  We turned off the TV and found other things to do.  Tempted, the game was turned on late in the third and happy to se the Longhorns hanging in 24-13.  They made a great effort under the circumstance pulling to within 24-21, but another INT sealed the deal late in the game for The crimson Tide.  "Shoulda, woulda, coulda" had McCoy not been injured, but that's the way the game turned out.  What a letdown for a mythical championship game.  Boise State finished undefeated just like Alabama.  Congratulations to Villanova, NW Missouri State, and Wisconsin-Whitewater!  All their won NCAA football championships as champions should - on the football field.  They defeated all of the best in their respective divisions.  We hope to see the same be done at the FBS level some day

Acts of God - From our personal experiences this college football season, this is what stands out the most for us this year.  The weather at many games we attended was not conducive to tailgating and watching great football.  Most settings were either rainy, extremely windy, snowy , downright freezing, or a combination of several of the aforementioned.  Both games at West Point were played under ominous skies that cancelled the traditional pre-game parachute jumps.  Rutgers-Pitt was played on a cold, rainy night in October with a mixture of snow, and the South Florida game at RU was played in extremely high winds on a Thursday night in November which prevented any form of tailgating.  Food, snacks, and paper plates would blow away.  A Thursday night game in early October at Princeton, when they hosted Colgate, was colder than expected that time of year.   Our first trip to Columbus, Ohio to see the eventual No. 5 Buckeyes host Illinois was played entirely during a cold, wet downpour.  Ask Frank Lorito who shunned rain gear we offered and stripped down in the car after the game to a take off layers of heavy, wet clothes.  In October, we traveled to Penn State in blizzard-like conditions to see them host Minnesota.  All grass parking lots were closed off.  It was cold and we still had a good time with our friends the Bonnefonds who were experiencing their first tailgate experience in Happy Valley.  A week later, our first trip to the Big House was under cold, rainy skies.  We enjoyed, great weather, great travels and great experiences at Marshall and at Lehigh two weeks in a row, but the final weeks of the season were a letdown. First, no playoff games were played in New England on Thanksgiving weekend, and the Syracuse-UConn game just didn't enthrall us to make the effort to watch them play on a very cold weekend.  We ventured down to Villanova the following week for the second round of the FCS playoffs where 'Nova hosted New Hampshire.  The snow started 15 minutes before we arrive.  By game time, we were knocking snow off bleachers and watched the first half in snowy, windy, sub-freezing temps.  Wet gloves caused the most discomfort that day.  Only the Villanova players had the benefit of artificial heat along the sideline. With the host team in control at halftime, we left in a driving snowstorm.  The two-and fifteen minute trip down took three and a half hours to get back.  Our plans to drive seven hours two weeks later to Salem, Virginia for the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl were thwarted by the threat of 18"- 24" of snow in the Appalachians of Virginia.  They got 16".  We thankfully stayed home and watched on TV.  The game was delayed five hours to clear snow from the field.  It turned out to be an exciting game.  With logistics limiting a multi-game bowl tour this year, we traveled to the Eagle bank Bowl in Washington, D.C. for the second year in a row.  High winds caused traffic delays on the way down. With wind chills taking temps down into the teens, we saw UCLA from sunny Southern California come back to defeat Temple.  A last-minute trip to Florida in late December to see two ailing family members put us two hours away from both the Outback and Capital One Bowls.  We were tempted to take a little side trip, but seeing the conditions and feeling the surprisingly colder than expected temperatures down there, we were glad to sit and enjoy the games on TV.  Most bowl games during the week suffered from similar cold temps.  Eagle Bank Guest  Game Analyst Eric Koreivo and I hope that next bowl season that not only the logistics and costs work in our favor to put together a bowl trip similar to previous years, but  we hope to find warmer climes to enjoy the experience wherever we go!

Double standards - Texas Tech is firing Mike Leach due to some alleged harassment of Patrick James, not only a player but the son of ESPN analyst Craig James.  Isn't Tech the same school that hired basketball coach Bobby Knight after he was let go by Indiana?  I always remember the video of Bobby kicking his own kid who played for him when he was sitting on the bench.  I see two extremes of fatherhood at work here as well.

Two out of three ain't bad, but 10 out of 12 says there's something wrong with this bowl picture - The SEC has 12 teams.  If all was done right somehow, you'd figure, 50% would have winning records and 50% would have losing records.  Six wins makes a team bowl-eligible ( I still hate that term).  The BCS system is so bad that one conference can finagle it to get ten teams out  twelve a bowl bid.  That shouldn't happen, but it does when all your teams generally play three or four teams who'd lose to you 99 times out of 100, and then they're played only at home in front of your vociferous home crowd.  You win six out of ten bowl games when nine out of ten venues played at are within a day's drive of your own campus.

The trap is set - Our Michigan connection, former cheerleader Dave Imrick, informed us as he suffered through the second consecutive season of  ineptitude at the Big House that Rich Rodriguez's days would be numbered only if there was a change at the AD level.  On January 5, the University announced current AD Bill Martin would be stepping down next September and that David Brandon had been selected to replace him pending a vote by the Board of Regents on Jan 21.  He would takeover the position in March with Martin acting as a special advisor until his retirement.  Brandon is a former Michigan football player who played under Bo Schembechler and is current chairman and CEO of Domino's Pizza located in Ann Arbor where he has maintained strong ties to the University.  It seems that this will be Rodriguez's last chance to bring the glory back to Ann Arbor in 2010 as any decision pending his future in March would be detrimental to recruiting and to spring practice.  If the Wolverines don't make significant progress in Rich-Rod's third year following a 5-7 season, he'll be wishing he'd never left West Virginia.

Bengal Tiger -  On day after completing a 4-6 season, Princeton University parted ways with Head coach Roger Hughes after ten years of leading the Tigers on the football field.  We'll certainly never forget the four games we watched Hughes's team play in 2006 on their way to a share of the Ivy League title and a 9-1 record.  They won exciting, memorable come from behind wins against Penn, Harvard, and Yale that we attended that season.  Princeton announced that Hughes's replacement will be a former Tiger ,All-Ivy center who played on the Tiger 1989 team that also shared the Ivy League title.  Bob Surace, class of '90, comes to the Tiger with college head coaching experience and NFL experience.  In 200-2--1, his Western Connecticut Colonials went 18-3 winning the ECAC Northeast championship playoff game and then won the schools first-ever playoff game the year later.  Since then, he has been on the coaching staff of the Cincinnati Bengals serving the last six as the assistant offensive line coach.  He left for Princeton as the Bengals proceed to their first playoff game since 1990 where they lost to the Jets on January 9.  We wish Bob the best of luck at PU, and hope that he brings back the style f play that garnered Ivy League championships for the Tigers in '89 and in '06.  He was a sophomore at the Columbia-Princeton game we attended in 1987 that saw the Lions set the mark for the longest collegiate losing streak at the time, 35 games.  They ended it at 44 one year later when they defeated Surace's Tigers in his Junior season.

Thirty-four and climbing - That's how many bowl games were played this year, and you know what?  There's a couple of new ones in store for us next year.  One is supposed to be played in the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium between the Big East and the Big Twelve.  We live just only a little over an hour away.  Have fun. We don't have any interest in attending that house that George built nor freezing our butts off in January in the Bronx to watch football in a stadium with sight lines built for baseball.  We hope to find better options.  Two more bowls means for more teams get to go bowling next year, base on the premise of "bowl eligibility", if we go beyond teh 68 teams who made it this year, who would have been left for four more slots.  Notre Dame!  Would they have swallowed their pride after a 6-6 season culminating in Charlie Weis's ouster if they were one of four teams with six wins? Kansas State finished 6-6 - perfect for the Yankee Stadium Bowl next year.  Wouldn't the K-Staters prefer to come out to play in a basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden instead?  They'd probably fit in more nicely there than in a big, empty, baseball stadium.  Two other schools finishing with 6-6 records were Sun Belters La-Monroe and LA-Lafayette, not exactly big draws.  Oh well, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State are just going to have to learn to come up with schedule to get all 12 SEC teams met year.  maybe they can each add the two Louisiana teams for starters.

Cash for "clunkers" - With 34 bowl games to be played, it's just ridiculous that 68 out of 119 teams are now going on to post season play.  When commentators say now that team so-and -so has wins over seven bowl-bound teams, what does it matter any more when a good portion make it with questionable 6-6 records?  We considered the International Bowl as a destination this year since it's one of few for us within driving distance.  The family applied for passports with the idea we could check out things north of the border along with some college football.  But, South Florida against Northern Illinois just can't get us excited to go.  Bowling Green plays Idaho, Central Michigan against Troy, 6-6 Iowa  State vs. 6-6 Minnesota, 6-6 Marshall at 9-3 Ohio (in Detroit),  and 9-3 Middle Tennessee against 6-6 So Miss, just don't get us excited.  Eliminate Marshall and So Miss who we saw play one another, and Ohio and Middle Tennessee playing each other would be of interest with nine wins each. 

No Smurf Turf, but we'll probably go - We definitely have to get out to a game in Boise one of these years and see a game on that ugly, blue turf, but not next. However, we're considering Navy season tix in 2010 which includes their season opener on September 4 against Maryland at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Ravens. Two days later at FEDEX Field in nearby D.C., the Broncos will be there on Labor Day to play Virginia Tech.  Both teams come back stocked with players returning from this year's roster.  BSU owes us a better performance than the one we attended in 2005 when they gave away the game on four Zabransky turnovers in the first half to Georgia in Athens on their way to a 48-13 debacle.  We plan to get these two in before GGA Eric's high school sophomore season starts the week after.

Time to cut the apron strings -  Back to the Texas Tech - Mike Leach situation.  Times have changed.  A lot of this sparked evidently when it came to light that the player supposedly put in a dark room when being treated for a concussion was Patrick James, son of ESPN analyst Craig James.  When interviewed on ESPN, the elder James mentioned that he was viewing this "not as a football analyst, but as a parent."  Sometimes it's time to let young adults handle situations on their own and make their own decisions.  I read The Junction Boys.  Nobody's parents complained to Paul "Bear" Bryant.  You practiced to play or you found a way home.  Times have changed - for the better, and for the worse.

Not what they used to be - Over the years I got in touch with John Massimilla prior to the season to figure which games on Penn State's home schedule I'd like to attend.  I always worked over the years to balance some tickets for good games with some tickets for bad.  Basically, for every Notre Dame game the Lions hosted when they were an Independent, I also took the tickets to see Temple.  When PSU joined the Big Ten, when I requested Michigan tickets, I'd also take the Northwestern tickets. Looking at the Lions slate for next season, the two best home games look like Temple and Northwestern!  Michigan and Michigan State both come to Happy Valley, but NU seems to be better going into next season.  The Lions visit Alabama after hosting Youngstown State in their opener.  Play Pitt, JoePa!

On to bigger and better things, or just avoiding the facts? - We never thought Pete Carroll would want to go back to the NFL.  Not only are the pros much different that college in recruiting versus drafting, free agents, waiver wires and the like, but in LA-LA land, his Trojans were the THE GAME in town void of any competition with Pro football for the entertainment dollar.  We're just wondering between the Joe McKnight accusations and what may come out of the Reggie Bush situation, is he heading back to the pros because he wants to or because he has to.  He was a mediocre head coach with the Jets and the Patriots.  With National championships at USC, he owned college football and he owned LA.  He had recruiting ties to the east coast as well as the west.  He was set for life with the Trojans.  We give him five years in Seattle.  He'll be back in college football then, if not sooner.