BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... breathe BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Ha ha... but your salary, I has it in Seattle

News like this just brings a bit of joy to a guy like me.

Ty Willingham made more money from Notre Dame in direct pay in '05-'06 and '06-'07 than Charlie Weis.

As just a general disliker of Notre Dame, you like to hear things like that. Kinda restores your faith in mankind.

Reminds you that God is smiling down on us. And He's merciful.

Godspeed, Joe.

JoePa goes to the hospital.

Here's to a speedy recovery good sir.

Well That Was Quick

While I'm sure there will be a couple of days/weeks before we hear the final verdict on the whole WVU/RichRod scandal one little quip in the court document seals the deal.

The Charleston Daily has the court documents here.

It takes a few pages down on the first part to find the end of the trial, but I'll highlight it for you

RichRod is asked to read his 2002 contract.

The Integration Clause
Page 13
Roman Numeral 10.

The Entire Agreement

It is mutually understood that this agreement contains all the terms and conditions to which the parties have agreed and there are no other understandings or representations, either oral or written, unless referenced in the preceding paragraphs. Regarding the subject matter this agreement shall be deemed to exist as a bond to the parties hereto. Any modification, amendment or addendum to this agreement shall be effective only if made in writing and signed by both parties

Gun. Meet Foot.

Ess-Eee-See Speeeeeeeeeed

According to SI.com, Urban Meyer continues to be pretty cool.

Urban is offering a scholarship to anybody who can outrun his fastest football players. While it's pretty unlikely that they'll be able to beat the Gators speedsters, it's a pretty cool thing to do.

They're also raffling off a chance to catch a pass from Tim Tebow, catch a punt, and kick a field goal.

Florida's spring game will be on ESPN tomorrow.

Watch it even if you hate the Gators... because it's FOOTBALL! ON TV. IN APRIL. AND IT'S 140 DAYS TILL REAL GAMEDAY!!!

Coaching cliches

The game speed lacked intensity. We really wanted to get people in leadership positions, but we beat ourselves out there today. We've got to quit making mental mistakes and begin playing as one team.

Coaches say the darndest things... no really, they do. Coachspeak has been around as long as we can remember and it is about as productive and informative as an ESPN blip.

Detroit News did their take... here's ours

1. "The offense is ahead of the defense right now (or vice-versa)."

As opposed to, "We're pretty well deadlocked. The offense can't score on the defense and the defense can't stop the offense."

2. "(Insert name here) has really bought into our off-season conditioning program."

As opposed to all those players who don't want playing time.

3. "We're trying to bring in a new attitude," or, "We're all business this spring."

I want to hear a coach say, "Well... we pretty much ruled everybody last year... and we really want to do that again this year.... So we're keeping the same ole' attitude. If it ain't broke don't fix it."

4. "There is no depth chart; every position is open."

Says the same guy that wiled a recruit in by promising him a starting position his true freshman year. Word.

5. "The intensity level of practices will increase as we try to get our players adjusted to game speed."

Game Speed. Intensity. Two of my favorite phrases. Game speed basically mean that you get run full speed like you would hope in a game and intensity just means you hit hard. So basically we want people to hit hard and run fast as we practice more. Got it. Thanks coach.

6. We beat ourselves out there today.

I screwed the pooch. I should have gone for it on 4th down The kids missed their blocks and dropped the balls. We're screw ups.

7. We didn't have an answer for (insert play/player) here

Somehow, despite video and a weeks worth of practice we still let them run the same play repetitively and they continued to get away with it. My bad.

7. We know that they're having a down year but they're still dangerous

I want a coach to walk out and say, "Man we just really plan on reaming them left and right. I mean a good ole fashion butt kicking." Screw the whole respect thing. Tell your team that you plan on beating them by 50 and taking them out for pizza and snow cones afterwards.

RichRod Comes to Sweet Justice

It's the beginning of the end for Richard Rodriguez.

Well at least his excess money he took from WVU.

RichRod is finally headed to court today. (Thanks Wizard of odds)

Rodriguez is hoping that the broken oral promises made to him by WVU will hold up enough in the court of law to have justified his departure. Since there's no written evidence... and RichRod pretty much violated his contract to a "T," we're not feeling too good for that four mil.

Personally if I'm a coach, that baby being edited out of there is a non-negotiable fact. I'll scratch it out and initial it right before I sign on the dotted line. There's no humanly possible way I sign a document that says I pay you money for me quitting. A university probably wouldn't allow that.

Probably why I'm not a coach though.

Excuse Me. I'll be in Tallahassee.

Coach Bobby Bowden and Lou Houlthz will be putting doing a Q&A at FSU's annual coaches' clinic. The awesomeness that is Bobby Bowden combined by the senility of Lou could only be improved by one thing.

Being moderated by JoePa.

Sadly that won't happen.

The next best thing will though. Coach Chuck "the Chest" Amato will be the moderater. While the article doesn't explicitly say it... Chuck will in fact be wearing sunglasses.

I just peed a little out of joy.

Ya think?

Miles gets his money.

Well deserved sir. Well deserved. If nothing else but for throwing the ball w/ 1 second left vs. Auburn and it actually working.

3.75 mil wouldn't be bad. That's like at least 8 million corn dogs. 5 mil if you get mustard.

WVU May Have Moved a Little Too Quickly

A Connecticut boy applied for the job of West Virginia's head coach.

Despite having no experience whatsoever.... they still hired Bill Stewart. I just did a google search on Joshua Irizarry and Bill Stewart and it would have been awesome if I had told you that Irizarry had more hits, but it didn't. The kid still pulled up 43k hits. Which is way cooler than if you google my name.

This could last a while

Rodgate appears like it is headed for a long, long, looooooooong trial. Adding another tidbit to the long list of petty actions, WVU is attempting to get the judge to throw out all of RichRod's counterclaims according to ESPN.com.

While this will probably end very boringly (as WVU will probably win), I'm sure there will be more countersuits and ridiculously trivial information brought up as well as good old-fashioned mudslinging.

OSU Fans taunt RichRod, Police hot on the tail of suspects

According to SI.com's Truth and Rumors Rich Rod and his family were taunted by OSU fans. The fallout was unbelievable.

New Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez learned Sunday that he can't escape Ohio State. Holding a microphone while standing with his family at center court at Crisler Arena at halftime of the Michigan-OSU basketball game, Rodriguez received a thunderous ovation from the hometown crowd. But a small group of Ohio State fans in the last rows of the arena made the moment a bit awkward, chanting "Tressel" and holding a bedsheet with "1,548 Days" written on it -- the period since U-M's last football victory over the Buckeyes in 2003.

Dear Heavens. Smack talk? At a sporting event? Between rival colleges? Call the po-lice. Right now. Epic, I say. Epic.

How in the heck does this make a headline?

These probably should as well then


Racism:




Fatism:


Boogerism:




The list could go on forever.

Aggies hire Kines, Bama says, "Again?"

According to The Birmingham News, Joe Kines is coming to Aggieland.

This is a pretty good hire all in all. Kines is just about everything I like in a coach. Mean-spirited, loud, firey and he sounds like a cat is trying to get out of his throat when he speaks

His last 3 teams at Bama were ranked 2nd, 2nd and 23rd defensively. Which is music to Aggies ears. He also held Texas Tech to 10 points in the Cotton Bowl during the 05-06 season. Aggies collectively crapped their britches and signed in blood on the spot.

Rich Rod screwed.

Rich Rodriguez's request to have his case tried as an intrastate case has been denied.

This doesn't bode well for Rodriguez. The case being heard in West Virginia all but assures the university/state will not only get the $4 million, but also Rich's boat house, cars, and use of his wife every other weekend.

Bill Belichick continues to be a class act

While there's a whole lot of important analysis on the game last night there is one thing that stood out to me above certain others.

Bill Belichick did the same thing the last time he lost (an upset from Eli Manning's brother Peyton in last year's Divisional playoff game.) He said the minimal in congratulations to Tom Coughlin and hightailed it out of there with 1 second remaining. I could give him the benefit of the doubt to believe that he really thought the game was over. That wouldn't excuse the whole not talking to any of the players on his team or the Giants

The great winners usually aren't good losers, but Bill takes the cake.

On other notes:

ESPN continues to be a cancer to the teams it promotes as the greatest ever.

I'll be honest here, ESPN.

Here are my teams: Texas Tech University, Texas A&M University, Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks, and the Texas Rangers. I know it's not likely, but if any of them have continued success similar to USC or the Patriots success, I would appreciate it if you give them the minimal coverage possible.

K. Thanx. Bai.

Him? Really?

Ron Zook wins Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year
From SI.com


Now I don't have anything against Ron Zook. He took an Illinois team and got 9 wins and a BCS bid which is pretty cool considering he did that despite having Juice Williams as his QB. He also gave all of his winnings to his school and charities... which is wholesome and moral and whatnot.

The fact that they gave it to him over oh say....

Mark Mangino: Crap.
Mizzou's Pinkel who beat the Zook and Mangino: even more crap.
LSU's Miles: Crippity Crap (not too bad of crap... but still crap)

That's not even getting four states away.

Zook didn't even get 2nd in his own conference (losing the tie-breaker to Michigan)

Heck, I'd give it to Stanford's Harbaugh just for scoring on USC once with Stamford's roster.

Other coaches that would deserve a shot:

Hawaii's June Jones, ASU's Erickson, MSU's Sylvester Croom, USF's Jim Leavitt, Georgia's Mark Richt

Kudos to him for giving it all to charity... but wow. Just wow.

Mangino out of hospital, ready for more cupcakes.

According to the Kansas City Star, Mark Mangino is out of the hospital and back on the prowl for recruiting and scheduling cupcakes.

Most excellent, my friends. Most excellent.

How far they fall.

The last we saw of Dennis Franchione was his resigning after beating the Aggies' arch rival Texas.

What's been happening since then?

The Kansas City had an interesting write up on the fallen star here

I think the article is a bit more scathing that necessary but it's interesting. I was never a Fran hater. The guy tried and it wasn't like he didn't deserve the reputation as a program rebuilder. He had moderate success at New Mexico which built into huge momentum at TCU. If anything he deserves some credit for allowing the little guys to get credit by having some great success at TCU. You can't blame a guy for taking a higher salary at a more prestigious school (Let it go WVU... Let it go.) So when Alabama came calling you can't blame a guy for taking the option.

Fran after a Tide win


After some serious NCAA sanctions Fran decided to head to Texas A&M which was where he stated several times that "he wanted that to be the last stop."

He was handed an undisciplined, less than talented team upon arriving in College Station (a 77-0 walloping by OU testified to that.) In year three it got better. They beat some good teams Oklahoma State and Clemson but left you scratching your head with a loss to Baylor and blowouts to Utah and Tennessee. Year four was underwhelming but ended on a high note as backup and future QB Stephen McGee had a spirited performance against eventual National Champion Texas.

Year five rolled around and it appeared to be now or never time. After a good year but not great at 8-3, Fran and the Aggies pulled of a miracle for the coach's future by upsetting a ranked Texas team. A 9-3 regular wasn't fireable, despite another butt kicking in the Holiday Bowl by California.

2007 opened up optimistically as the Ags were ranked and supposedly stocked up with talent on a Senior laden team. A Thursday night date with Miami was supposed to be a coming out party, but was instead a flub to the tune of 34-17.

The next week was the beginning of the end. Fran was caught selling a $1,200 secret newsletters to elite alums that wanted recruiting and practice inside info. In actuality, this wasn't a big deal. Boneheaded, but not a big deal. Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech has done similar things for years without it being mentioned.

For the most part, the newsletter was swept under the rug, as it should have been. It wasn't a big deal and it was fairly innocent. Just win and people will forget.

Well Fran didn't win. He got blown out by Texas Tech. Kansas won at Kyle Field. Oklahoma stomped them again. Mizzou beat them soundly. It seemed no matter what the outcome was of the Texas game he was done.

Unfortunately for Fran, a big win in the Aggies most complete game over Texas didn't do it. He resigned immediately after the game. To add salt in an open wound, proverbial toolbait, Jack Arute asked him if he was fired less than thirty seconds after the game in the post-game on the field interview. You could see pain in his eyes as he couldn't even answer some of the questions.

You knew he was done.

Was the firing fair?

Yes. He had 5 years at a school with big money and the record wasn't what it should have been.

Could it have worked out?

Maybe. It really seemed the last two years that Fran didn't want to lose this job and tried his heart out to keep it. Insiders say that he was at work early and left late every day. He gave almost a year's salary to the indoor practice facilty. They also say he was passionate. Outside of his first year, Fran kept the program clean. While Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State players were out having legal escapades and NCAA infractions, Fran kept the Aggies in a good light for the better part of 4 years.

Those didn't equate to wins. Unfortunately that's all people want to see in this business.