So Much To Say, So Little Time

First I want to send my condolences out to the family of fellow Tennessee Alumni Jesse Mahelona. I did not have the opportunity to meet the young man but by all accounts he was a great football player and an even greater person. We mourn your loss.

Now there is something I have to get off my chest. If this hit...



...is unnecessary roughness, then college football players should start playing in halter tops and mini skirts. Not only was it a clean hit, but the kid didn't even stand over the receiver and taunt him, and I KNOW he had to be tempted to after such a picture perfect snot bubble inducing smack down. What has football come to if a defensive player can't actually play defense? Besides that, the call affected the outcome of the game as it put Oklahoma State in position for the score which put the game out of reach.

As much as I love football I just don't know how much more I can watch if they are going to keep pussifying the game.


-I watched so much football yesterday that it wasn't even funny. I tried to overload on it because I had missed college football so much. I just want to throw out a few observations.

The new Kiffin and Kiffin era up in Tennessee is up to a smashing start. The most impressive thing about the team, in my opinion, was the Offensive Line. Especially the right side of line provide holes big enough to drive an old school Hummer through. Starting running back Montario Hardesty is a good big back with a lot of speed but I really think he lacks the shiftiness to fully exploit some of those holes. The freshman Bryce Brown showed a lot of potential but the third and fourth string backs, David Oku and Tauren Poole, showed a little more of the shiftiness that I think is needed to really make teams pay for getting gashed by the Offensive Line. I know Brown will probably continue to get playing time because he is the prize pickup of the freshman class but I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those lower tier guys start taking some reps from Hardesty. The quarterback Crompton looks poised for a big year and he has some weapons at wideout like Marsalis Teague and at TE, a position that traditionally has been under utilized at Tennessee, like Luke Stocker. Lane Kiffin's offense didn't quite look unstoppable yet but it did look pretty damned good.

On defense those guys were coming. Poppa Kiffin showed some 3-4 looks in addition to their base 4-3 that I think will really help when they get to teams like Florida and Georgia. The pass rush was outstanding and the opposign quarterbacks rarely even had the opportunity to get a pass off. The one thing that caused me some concern was that in their base 4-3 defense they have a 6 technique (head up on the TE) to the strong side. It took a long time but later in the game Western Kentucky realized that this created problems for the defense to keep containment. Now thankfully their coaches were a little too dumb to exploit it but from what I saw of Georgia yesterday, they have a really good sweep running game. That needs to be cleaned up and fast.

All in all it was a really good start to the season for the Vols but we have to temper our excitement as it was only Western Kentucky. The UCLA game next week should be a much better litmus test for where we are as a team.

Florida looked great on offense and defense and the only quibble I had was with the passes that were dropped by their wide receivers. I still think that losing Louis Murphy will have an effect on the team going forward but with as many athletes as they have at every position, its hard to say how big of an effect it will be.

USF played a sloppy game against Woolford, at least on defense, which was to be expected with their option offense. But overall I liked how All American DE George Selvie (whom I coached as a true freshman) looked as well as QB Matt Grothe and RB Mo Plancher. They did however suffer a blow as starting Safety Jerrell Young broke his arm during the game.

The Big 10 didn't look so great with Ohio State barely getting passed Navy and Iowa needing two blocked field goals in a row to beat Northern Iowa. The ACC was worse however with Virginia losing to William and Mary and Wake Forest losing to Baylor. Not a stellar day for either conference.

The game of the day, by far, was Alabama going up against Virginia Tech in Atlanta. This was a true defensive struggle and it was physical as all hell. Just the way I like it :)

Bama's defense might be even stronger than last year's and their running game with Mark Ingram and Roy Upchurch was outstanding. Greg McElroy looked good at quarteback as well. I would say that the most outstanding statistic of the night was that Bama held the Hokies' quarterback, Tyrod Taylor to -26 yards rushing on 10 carries.

It was a hard fought game and Virginia Tech gave as good as they got. If there is cause for concern on Alabama's part its giving up the return on special teams for a touchdown.

LSU looked good against Washington but its hard to gauge whether Washington is a much improved team over years past which would mean LSU beat a pretty good team, or if Washington isn't all that good and thus them hanging with LSU most of the game is a cause for concern. I guess we will see how both teams fare in the weeks to come.

Well that's all I have. I am still buzzed off of the high that only a full day of college football can give me. Can't wait to do it all again next week!

Holleywood Makes A House Call!

I spent a lot of the spring talking a lot of shit about Michael Irvin's reality show "4th and Long" before it ever came on. I was just sure it was going to be corny and just a total farce. However, as sometimes happens, I ended up being hooked on the show. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the drills the had on the show had absolutely nothing to do with playing pro ball. Still a lot of the players were themselves compelling. For instance I started off the season kinda cheering on a guy by the name of Montrell Jones because he played for my alma mater UT, but by the end of the season I was pissed that he hadn't been cut earlier on because the guy was lazy as hell.

But the most compelling guy, to me at least, ended up winning the show. Jesse Holley was a big guy who could run and jump and catch and he just kind of stood out in most regards. At first I wasn't sure he was physical enough but as each week passed he showed himself to be more and more willing to initiate contact. But as big or bigger than all of that was the attitude he had on and off the field. Here was a guy competing for a job against every other guy on the show, yet you ALWAYS heard him giving encouragement to the other guys whether on or off the field. And it got to a point after awhile where because Irvin and the other coaches didn't spend much time talking him up that I figured he might get robbed. But in the end they did the right thing in my opinion and the best guy won.

Now being a Cowboys fan from since I was a kid I have been following online the progress of the time on the blogs. For whatever reason nobody gave Holley a chance in hell of making the team. I realize that for a "reality TV guy" to get a roster spot might be a little too much for people to accept inside the NFL culture but I mean if the guy can play whats the difference between him and a guy who never even played football who ends up becoming a pro bowl tight end?

So Holley would make one or two plays a day in practice but didn't get much burn in the preseason games. It doesn't look like he has a prayer of making the team and honestly I think thats a shame. Im not saying the guy is a world beater, but he does have height and speed and he doesn't appear to be scared at all. But I will tell you this much, if he does get cut today at least he went out with a bang last night.



Im sure the Cowboys' special teams coach about had a heartattack when he first picked up the ball but that's what we call an "attaboy". If it works everyone praises you, if not you are gonna get dog cussed. I am pretty sure I know which one Holley got when he came back to the sidelines.

The Turk Is Going After More Than Just Players This Week

Evidently this is what's hot right now in the NFL:

In a press conference that streamed via the team's official web site roughly as well as the team's offense executed its mission during the preseason, the Buffalo Bills confirmed that offensive coordinator Turk Schonert has been ousted from his position.

"Today we removed Turk Schonert and relieved him of his responsibilities as our offensive coordinator," coach Dick Jauron said. "[Quarterbacks coach] Alex Van Pelt will assume the play calling duties and [running backs coach] Eric Studesville will continue as our run game coordinator and we'll obviously move forward as quickly and as well as we possibly can from here. Nothing that we had planned on obviously, nothing that was enjoyable in any way shape or form, but that's what occurred."

Jauron said that the decision was his and his alone.

"I wasn't thinking about firing him three days ago," Jauron said. "I wasn't thinking about it two weeks ago. And when you start thinking about it, I think you need to move on it and do something. So when I started thinking about it I gave it a good deal of thought and did it. Clearly I believe it's the right thing to do. It's painful for him and for his family and for the organization to go through it, but it was just a decision I needed to make I felt, and made it."

Jauron also said that Schonert will not be remaining with the team.

We kinda saw this after the season started last year with Ted Cottrell fired as Defensive Coordintor in San Dieogo and Brian Stewart demoted from Defensive Coordinator in Dallas. Still firing a coordinator a week before the regular season has got to be unprecedented and for it to happen on three different teams is definitely shocking. But I guess that's why they call it a copy cat league.

In Defense Of The Mostly Indefensible

That is the video of Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount punch Boise State defensive lineman Byron Hout after Oregon lost the game last night and Blount ended up with negative yardage. I will admit I didn't see it happen live and for most of the day I had to rely on a shorter clip. And the shorter clip actually would have made me feel a lot better about what I am about to say but with the extended clip there is no doubt that Blount was totally out of control. The guy not only punched Hout but also one of his own teammates who was trying to restrain him after the altercation. He then went on to try to pull an Artest and try to run up in the stands to fight the Boise State fans and he had to be restrained by Oregon Football staff and the police. Clearly Blount has major anger management issues and Oregon's head coach, Chip Kelly, will have to deal with him appropriately and get him a lot of help.

Having said all of that, I still have to keep it real, Byron Hout instigated the incident. That is not to say he deserved to get stole on, but it is to say that had he not come up talking shit and patting on Blount's shoulder pads its highly likely that nothing would have happened to him. If you look at the video its clear that after Hout ran up on Blount and before Blount punched him, one of Boise State's coaches was already about to reprimand Hout. The coach can be seen pushing Hout and grabbing him about to jack him up right before Blount drops him with a punch and even after Hout goes down the Coach seems to still be admonishing him.

Had Blount only thrown that one punch and then calmed down and walked away I would almost be willing to bet that he wouldn't have faced that great a discipline just because Hout started it. But being that he lost his mind and was still flipping out well after the incident he almost guaranteed that he gets hit with a multi game suspension.

Now one final note, ex Notre Dame coach Bob Davie was commentating the game and he pissed me off in what he said about the incident directly after it happened. If you go to the 2:18 mark of the video you hear Davie excusing Hout's taunting because Blount had said things to the media prior to the game about how he was going to perform against the Boise State defense. That is not something an adult in general or a coach in particular should be saying on national Tee Vee. You should win like a champion and lose like a champion and acting an ass after a game because an opposing player acted an ass before the game is not what champions do. I really think he should issue an apology for saying something so stupid.

What The Hizzle?!

Man this dude must have smoked crack or got caught with a hooker or something!

Jeff Jagodzinski has been fired as the Bucs offensive coordinator. Quarterbacks coach Greg Olson has been promoted to the post.

The news is a shock, coming just more than a week before the start of the regular season.

Jagodzinski never coached a regular season game with the Bucs, having been hired in February.

There was no reason offered by the team in its announcement, but coach Raheem Morris will hold a news conference at noon to take questions on the move.

Maybe this is just some kind of new trend with first time Head Coaches in the NFL since we saw Chief's coach Todd Haley do the same thing just the other day, but I gotta say it's not a good look for Raheem Morris. I guess we will see around noon what he has to say about it but this is a sure way to lose the lockerroom if its not played right.



Update: All I can say is WOW!

Sometime during training camp, it became increasingly apparent to Bucs officials and players, that Jagodzinski was not equipped to install and direct an NFL offense. His expertise centered mostly around the zone blocking scheme, which he helped operate for the Atlanta Falcons.

But Jagodzinski lacked sophistication regarding protections and different aspects of an NFL passing game.

The Bucs promoted quarterbacks coach Greg Olson to offensive coordinator. The Bucs made the move today because they have one preseason game remaining Friday against the Texans to work out the logistics of how and where Olson will call plays.

Logan will remain with the Bucs in his current capacity and continue to assist Olson.
The decision to hire Jagodzinski as offensive coordinator was obviously a bad one. In the end, the Bucs believed he might be more qualified as a head coach than a play-caller.

"Coach Jag came in and I have a lot of respect for him,'' Morris said. "But we're at the point now where we have to be more precise and we need to be more detailed and we need to have more direction to where we're going to go. And we just didn't have it right now for whatever reason. That's about as detailed as I can get on it.''

You have to ask why exactly they would hire a guy that didn't have experience calling plays and also what kind of interview process they actually went through for them not to know his limitations before they offered him the job. This actually makes the Bucs look bad if you ask me, especially when they wait until a week before the first game to make this move instead of earlier in the offseason. Adding to that the fact that its not likely that the top two quarterbacks on the team will get meaningful playing time tomorrow in the last preseason game.

You have to ask yourself at this point if his lack of ability might have made a difference in the Quarterback competition. It will be interesting to see if anything changes going forward and how the team adjusts.

Much Ado About Nothing: Clinton Portis Edition

Here is the screaming headline:

"Redskins’ Portis takes a swipe at Riggins"

But here are some of the quotes included in the article.

“I think he was a great running back,

The people around here love you, and I’m not trying to replace you.

“It ain’t no ill will,” Portis said. “I’m minding my business, and hopefully he’ll do the same. ... He deserves to be a legend. And I can see why the town appreciates him when you put in that kind of work for an organization and the fans are that crazy about you. You should be appreciated."

So what did he say that was so offensive to John Riggins?

“I think he was a great running back, but, you know, think of who else was around him,” Portis said. “That was really not hard to be a great running back when you’ve got that talent all around you. I think they just had great teams, you know. I think everybody who played in that era as a running back is big around here.”

Now while you can say that's a swipe at Riggins, couldn't it also be spun as him giving some love to Riggin's teammates? And make no mistake about it, he DID have a lot of talent around him back in the day.

If the guy making these comments wasn't named "Clinton Portis" there is no way this is even a story.

It is what it is.

Vlogging The Bucs: Byron Leftwich Named Starting Quarterback

My thoughts on the Bucs naming Byron Leftwich the starting QB